The Hangover Part III
Director: Todd Phillips
Cast: Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms
Length: 100 minutes
Country: USA
Despite the skepticism that’s been directed at the third installment of the Hangover franchise, illustrating it as an unnecessary and purely moneymaking scheme, I was looking forward to seeing it. The first is one of my favorite comedies and I enjoyed the second film a lot, so I had some expectation of quality. What I was presented with, however, was a movie so lost for ideas that it ceased being a comedy; a film that faced with its own lack of humor ended up misusing it’s popular characters and bombarded the audience with over top set pieces, guns and explosions.
After the immense success of the first Hangover film, director Todd Phillips and his writers created what was essentially a carbon copy of the first feature for the sequel. This time however, they take the franchise in a slightly different direction. Whilst transporting Alan (Zach Galifiankas) to a rehab facility in Arizona, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Doug (Justin Bartha) are kidnapped and taken hostage by a ruthless gangster (John Goodman). They are given the task of locating Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) who has hijacked half of a 42 million gold heist and recently escaped a maximum-security prison in Bangkok. Doug is taken for ransom leaving the ‘Wolfpack’ to once again search desperately for a missing person.
The Hangover Part III lacks any real structure and gets carried away by its own insanity
Whilst their decision to be more ambitious in the storyline is admirable, the film fails for the simple reason that it lacks any real humor for the majority of its 100 minute running time. There are moments of the first film’s charm such as a gag about Alan’s singing ability and a hilarious cameo from Bridesmaids star Melissa McCarthy, but apart from these moments, the jokes feel stale and awkward. Whilst watching it you can imagine the writers, unable to think of anything fresh, deciding to repeat past jokes and overuse already popular characters. Mr. Chow for example was hilarious as a side character but by increasing his screen time, he feels unwanted. The first Hangover worked so well because the more rational characters like Stu and Phil grounded the more ridiculous and exaggerated ones like Alan and Chow. By overusing Alan and Chow, The Hangover Part III lacks any real structure and gets carried away by its own insanity.
One of the main methods the film uses to make up for its lack of ideas is upping the action. Whilst the first two toed the line between humor and action, this quickly establishes that it will be a mostly one-note affair. Admittedly it’s enjoyable at first and showcases Todd Phillip’s ability to direct great action sequences, but it eventually becomes tiresome.
The first Hangover film was filled with consistently hilarious moments and although the second was criticized for its lack of originality, I felt that there was still humor that could have been squeezed from the concept. The conclusion to the Hangover trilogy however takes all that was originally funny and overuses it to the point that it is boring and mostly devoid of humor. The first film rightfully made stars of its cast and thus together with the always-reliable John Goodman cannot be solely blamed for the failure of the film. There is little that any of them can do with such a bland and lazy script.
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