Fridae

Judging by the titles of films released in the past 30 years, one comes to realise a few things about the film industry and audiences. If there’s a good movie, audiences would like to pay good money to watch it over and over again. The film industry obliges by offering sequels that superficially advance the plot but in fact retread the same winning formula, framework, and major plot points. We could well be talking about horror movie franchises or comedy and parody film franchises.

The Hangover: Part II is no different from the parade of sequels churned out by the industry to cash in on a good first film. Just like the first Hangover film, the premise and the major plot points remain the same: a bunch of best friends accidentally ingest illegal substances on the eve of a wedding, find themselves in a strange land missing a buddy. In their attempt to reconstruct the missing hours of their lives, they will encounter criminals after their heads as well as a whole host of strange people who claim to have spent time with them. In other words, it’s like The Hangover, which was like a far more raunchy, adult-rated Dude, Where’s My Car? But without the eye candy of Ashton Kutcher.

As expected of a Todd Philips film, the quality of the comedy is uneven. Dialogue can be weak at times with punchlines that don’t deliver – and it’s the performance of the cast (notably Galifianakis and Jeong) that carry these scenes through. The obviously ad libbed comedy scenes work far better than the scripted comedy scenes.

Whatever jokes you saw in The Hangover are repeated in this sequel. But since the story is set in Bangkok instead of Las Vegas, this presents an opportunity for the jokes to involve tattoo parlours, transsexual prostitutes, and redshirt riots. If the original was raunchy enough, the sequel aims to top the ribaldry and as a bonus, be even more politically incorrect and tastelessly offensive. If you liked the first Hangover, the second one is an improvement of sorts, despite being a facsimile of the original.