The Hangover Part II: Copy Cat

You’re not making this easy on me, Hangover Part II.

I’m supposed to review a movie, but you didn’t give me much to work with. If I’d been doing this longer, I’d simply repost my old review for the first film and add “Part II” where applicable. That would be showing the same level of effort that you’ve brought to the table.

At the same time, I’m confused. And a little hurt. You’re a product of some of the most talented people working in Hollywood today, but given two years and a bigger budget, you gave us back… nothing. And I’m not sure how. It seems that, even by accident, some original and interesting moments would come from this. But there’s just… nothing. I didn’t think it was possible to aim a camera in Zach Galifianakis’ direction and, no matter how banal the surroundings were, not capture flakes of genius that would make you all warm inside. Just watch “Out Cold”. Which is no doubt a superior film to… this.

Embarrassingly, I had expectations for you. I know that was probably a bad idea, and historically, looking for a comedy sequel to improve upon its origins has rarely panned out. Maybe these weren’t high expectations, but I expected to feel at least half as good watching you as I did the original. Some sort of law of diminishing returns or some-such thing. But Part II isn’t even a bad film sequel. A comparison to American Pie 2 has no place here. The closest film in existence, and the only one you really make sense standing alongside, is Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho. The shot for shot remake of the original. But at least that film added color, and a cameo by Flea. It seemed strange on the surface, but it explored questions about filmmaking, filmic identity, the evolution of cinema, and more importantly, had a gap of almost 40 years between release dates. Critics had a hard time reviewing that too, because when two things are so similar (read: exact same), how do you lambast one without retroactively lambasting the other? This should be less hard in our case, since the original Hangover isn’t exactly Hitchcock, but it was a film with a fresh voice, great performances, and above all else, a sense of originality within the genre.

So what are you, Numero Dos? And why are you?

I won’t be the first critic to tell you that screening the two films side by side would reveal that they are the exact same movie, but obviously that’s really all we can say. There’s nothing new to be found here. The live animal they find in the room tags along a little more than the lion, the stripper has a penis, and instead of a bitchy girlfriend, Ed Helms has a bitchy father-in-law. Also there’s a different character that the Wolfpack loses, but since who he is has no impact on the movie, it’s another non-change.

But past that, it’s as if they wrote new scene headings on the original script, changed a few character names, and kept everything else locked in place. I understand that you don’t change a winning formula, but they might as well have just released the original film in 3D. The twists all pan out at exactly at the same points, Galifianakis is responsible for the drugging again (despite a real missed opportunity to make Bradley Cooper the culprit this time), the missing guy may have been kidnapped in a criminal scheme gone wrong but when this thread gets resolved it’s all for naught, the doctor who helps them piece back together their night is now a tattoo artist, Ed Helms sings a song to signal the start of the third act, a wedding band does funny covers, the opening and closing scenes are LINE FOR LINE the exact same, plenty of Kanye West soundtrack, Mike Tyson appears for no damn reason, and we get photos from the forgotten night over the credits (which makes essentially a DVD bonus feature one of the highlights of the movie). A number of characters get brought back from the original with no explanation or purpose. It makes you wonder why they bothered moving it from Vegas to Thailand at all. The film might’ve worked better by staying in familiar locations and not breaking all kinds of reality in its effort to reunite us with bit players.

The saddest thing of all is the blatant reuse of punch lines. It hurts to watch Galifianakis say “page me” or re-iterate they’re the three best friends that anyone could have, or tell us where the Jonas Brothers concert is. But the worst comes from the many, many times throughout the film where a line is followed by “… again!” or “how could that happen twice?” It’s like a satire of a big budget sequel film. The laziness of reusing every funny line from the original, and pointing out that you said that line the first time around… why did you need three screenwriters for that? I’m seriously asking. Not in a “How many screenwriters does it take to screw in a light bulb?” kind of way. I really want to know.

The worst part is I genuinely want a Hangover Part 3. I do. And I’m almost guaranteed to get my wish based upon the opening weekend numbers. I want the movie that Part II should have been. I almost want it at this point as simply an apology for what I sat through. I’ve never actively felt like I was wasting my time while sitting in a movie theater. And that includes “Shoot ‘Em Up” and “License to Wed”. Watching The Hangover Part II was like wishing I had the last 1 hour and 42 minutes of my life back. Literally.  The tedium was lethal. The audience died very early and never came back, so I know I’m not alone. I mean, I sat next to a group of middle-aged women who laughed at every single second of the trailers, and watched them rendered mute by the mid-point of The Hangover Part II. They would’ve laughed at anything, had they been given something to laugh at.

What I’m hoping is that audiences around the world will not carry that silence with them out of the theater, but instead demand action. Demand something better. And it’s worth demanding. Everyone involved in this film has proven potential before, and we all know there’s more where that came from.  Please try again, but really, really try and do it right the next time around. Copying the copy cat will only get you so far.