The Hangover Part II Directed by: Todd Phillips Starring: Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, Jamie Chung Rating: R Release Date: May 26, 2011
TRAILER SCORE: 5/10
Thoughts by TSR: The party animals of The Hangover Part II don't remember the events that got them into their title state, but the creative minds behind these films absolutely do. Why else would this trailer look like a tribute to the first movie, which blew the minds of bros and bro-ettes alike?
As I did with the monkey puns on my Rise of the Apes trailer review, I'm going to begin the first movie comparisons that will be inevitably be exhausted once The Hangover Part II dumps itself into theaters. Here we go: Replace Las Vegas with Bangkok. Replace a young baby with a monkey. Replace Ed Helms' tooth-loss with a Mike Tyson tattoo. Replace the joke of a baby masturbating with the joke of an old man having his "wenus" being nibbled by aforementioned monkey. Keep the naked guy (Ken Jeong).
From the looks of this trailer, it seems like Justin Bartha's character Doug still isn't even a big part of the Hangover commotion. While he may not be the missing person in this round, is it possible that moving Doug into the story's madness would disrupt the formula relied on by the screenwriters?
I've seen The Hangover twice - once in theaters, and one time with a little hangover juice (it seemed logical). Under neither circumstance did I find the humor of the film uproarious, but I admired the movie's appreciation for creating a story arc. While "random naked dude popping out of a trunk" could be chalked up as lazy, the concept of a story about people trying to make sense of the aftermath of a party did have its freshness. Now with so much obvious borrowing from the previous, that extra push might be misplaced.