This is everything you expect from an action film sequel: a more exotic locale, bigger action set pieces and humorous callbacks to the first film. The one thing "The Hangover, part II" seems to have forgot was that the original was a comedy.
I've always enjoyed Todd Phillips. I think "Old School" was the film that got me, where I saw that his style & cinematography as more grainy and authentic than the shoe shine polish of the Apatow generation of comedies. Thematically, Phillip's comedies come together under an umbrella of men who will be boys, avoiding the inevitable leap from a lifestyle of irresponsibility into some rite of passage into adulthood. Whether it's college, having a baby, or getting married. These passages, and what means a manboy uses to prolong that experience is what makes up a Phillip's movie & comedy mantra.
And "THP2" is no exception.
As most critics have stated, in one way or another, if you go into "Part II" with no recollection of the first, save for a few callbacks, this film is very funny, but the formula has grown surprisingly old and surprisingly quick.
In the opening flash forward, when the Wolfpack explains that, "we've done it again," a great laugh comes from the audience. However, unfortunately, we have and will over the course of the next hour and forty minutes. The formula is unwaveringly the same. So much so, that some of the jokes that should come off laugh out loud funny, fall flat, especially the revelation of where there "missing comrade" is.
Is this good filmmaking? It always is from Todd Phillips. No one shoots a comedy like Phillips. I consider him almost a Michael Bay of comedies. With a slick, raw & grainy style whose design, colors and light are unmatched in most blockbuster comedies. The performances are also always top notch and I believe their plights and reactions to their situations, even the over-the-top Galifianakis.
Where "The Hangover part II" doesn't deliver is using our expectations against us. I have found that the best comedy is in the unexpected. A great example of this is the banana peel in Billy Madison. For the full course of the film, we continue to come back to the peel, waiting... expecting... the end result... we know slipping on a banana peel as an old comedy bit, like a pie in the face, yet this is used to great comedic effect by using it in an unexpected way, toying with us for almost 90 minutes.
There are none of these unexpected moments in the second installment.
Here, we're stuck watching Zach be Zach, Cooper be Cooper and Helms be Helms. There are no surprises. It seems they wanted to take us on a more plot driven adventure this time, but the plot, though set in a different part of the world is still built from the same mortar.
The worst sin of all, is that with this sequel out and a third on its way, the magic & mystery of "The Hangover" is now old hat. It's now a movie I probably can't enjoy again, knowing that it's been beaten to death, destroying an ingenious formula, for a few hundred million dollars. It all makes sense, but you can't help but know that filmmaking as a business can be so heartbreaking.
Also, as a side note, I've noticed that Todd Phillips has gotten really angry over the past two films: Due Date & Part II are both built on really angry, mean-spirited humor. Curious.
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