When the 2009 sleeper hit The Hangover grossed a jaw-dropping $450 million worldwide box office gross, a sequel was pretty much guaranteed. Oddly enough, said sequel sticks so close to its predecessor’s formula that it’s more of a remake than a second installment.
In the second outing of the Wolf Pack (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis), Stu (Helms) is the groom-to-be, scheduled to marry his sweetheart Lauren (Jamie Chung) in her native Thailand. Still traumatized by what happened in Vegas and determined to avoid any more chaos, Stu opts for a bachelor brunch at IHOP in lieu of a bachelor party, and even goes so far as to not invite group’s raging man-child id Alan (Galifianakis) to the nuptials. He relents on that last one, and of course all hell immediately breaks loose.
One minute, the guys are having a quick round of beers on the beach at a Thai resort; the next, they’re waking up in a scuzzy Bangkok hotel room with no memory of how they got they there. Alan’s head has been shaved, Stu has a brand-new face tattoo, and Stu’s teenaged soon-to-be brother-in-law Teddy (Mason Lee) is missing — well, most of him. One of his fingers is still in the room. So is a capuchin monkey in a denim jacket.
As before, Phil (Cooper), Alan, and Stu embark on an odyssey through a city of debauchery, piecing together the clues from a night that involved a Buddhist monk, riots, drug dealers, strippers, effeminate gangster Mr. Chow (Community‘s Ken Jeong in a scene-stealing reprise of his role from the original). Let’s face it: Bangkok makes Las Vegas look like a retirement community for Baptists.
Cooper is saddled with the thankless job of playing the straightman to these wayward bozos, and Zach Galifianakis is, well, Zach Galifianakis. As the milquetoast dentist with a weakness for prostitutes it’s actually Helms who carries the movie. He’s the only one with a character arc in either movie, though the tension between him and his domineering, disapproving father-in-law is underdeveloped and too easily resolved.
The plot plays out almost scene-for-scene like the original, with a few variations and a little more action and a lot more raunch thrown in, and though there’s an air of familiarity about it, it still delivers just as many belly laughs and cringe-inducing shock moments. That’s likely to be enough for most fans of the original as well as newcomers.
The Hangover two is playing at Angelika, NorthPark, Studio Movie Grill and Galaxy – show times here.
