The first Hangover movie made a big profit. A really big profit. Enough profit to buy drinks for everybody you know or ever will know forever. This would give everyone a hangover so big it will make Kirstie Alley look small. Yes, that big. Is Part II as funny as Part I? Is wine in a box as good as Lafite Rothschild 1981? No. But if you lay the wine in the box on its side for a couple of hours before opening, it will improve with age.
This time the guys are off to Thailand for the big wedding of the milquetoast dentist and his beautiful Asian fiancé, who must be blind as a bat to marry this guy. He takes all the gang from Hangover I along and from there…let the complications begin.
They took the same idea that was so successful the first time and recycled all the jokes with a lot of raunchiness to cover up the fact the jokes are no longer fresh or near as funny. While the hi-jinx have their moments, none of the wonderful surprises from Hangover I are matched.
After an unusually slow start they pick up the pace both of the storyline and the consumption of alcoholic products. Cut to the next morning. Nobody feels so good. One of the party is missing. They are under a lot of pressure. More and more problems and complications are in their path. Well into the film, Paul Giamatti makes an appearance. He is another one of their many, big problems. Little by little we find out what happened during the “forgotten” bender from the night before. None of it is very pretty and all is very, very raunchy.
Things go from bad to worse and the raunchy bar goes up as the humor evaporates. Eventually there is a “cut to the chase” moment when they literally do so.
Once the resolution comes they have another character from Hangover I turn up for the final scene. Not a tiger, although considering where they are that would have been a natural. The end credits contain most of the shenanigans from the big bender via still pix. This provides the final and (should have been left to the imagination) most raunchy scenes of all. Definitely not for the raunchy-makes-me-queasy crowd. The College Drinking Club will love it.
Rated 2.2 out of 4.0 reasons this film may be just the boost you need to give up drinking. I’ll have another. Better make it a double.