I won’t even bother going over the premise or back story of Todd Phillips’ 2009 smash hit comedy The Hangover, because:
a) you’ve almost certainly already familiar with it, and
b) because the trailer for the upcoming sequel, from the bachelor party spun out of control, the search for a missing friend, all the way down to the exotic animal that Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Stu (Ed Helms) and Phil (Bradley Cooper) gets stuck with makes it look as though the follow up will follow the exact same path as the original film.
Not that that is necessarily a bad thing – I’m sure they’ll milk the “oh no not again!” angle for all the comedy they can. Still, it’s rather astounding just how similar this sequel looks.
Despite (or perhaps because) of the remarkable similarity to the first film, I do think the trailer does a good job of selling the sequel, with plenty of the wild situations and Zach Galifianakis/Ken Jeong shtick that made the original so entertaining. I also have a slightly more personal interest in the film, having spent a year of my childhood living in Bangkok. So at the very least I’ll be interested in seeing how Phillips utilizes Thailand as a setting for the wolf-packs’ debauched antics. My guess: not particularly realistically.
The Hangover Part II will be in theatres worldwide from May 26th.
What say you? Can lightning strike twice, or would you have prefered not to see these characters returning to the big screen?
I would have preferred not to have seen those characters the first time…
I just didn’t like these guys and didn’t find that they said or did anything funny in the first movie – some of the situations and setups were well constructed, but the characters and the writing always fell short.
I’m giving this a wide berth.
Having seen all of Ken Jeong, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis in various other roles that I love since seeing the Hangover, and having thoroughly enjoyed the original… I think I can forgive the makers of this movie for realistically doing a remake rather than a sequel
No and no and not a chance in hell. Between this and Your Highness, I weep for the state of theatrical comedies today.
The first one had structure as its draw…the jokes were mostly lame, but I give them credit for hybridizing comedy/whodunit (albeit WITHOUT A CLUE is the best of that niche hybrid) Once was enough. I’ll give YOUR HIGHNESS a whirl, it amuses me to no end the sheer talent involved on something that is so obviously a free-form lark…
That’s the thing – though the Your Highness trailer doesn’t look very good, I don’t actually know what it’s gonna turn out to be. I’m a fan of some of the comedies that have loose structure and likely build many of their jokes via improv on set. Not all, but certainly some.
The Hangover II? I know exactly what that’s going to be. And that just doesn’t do much for me.
I gotta be honest, based on the trailers, I’ll see this ten times over before I see Your Highness – that thing looks AWFUL!
There is a difference between awful ‘goofy’ and awful ‘cynical/desperate’ and I classify Your Highness as the former and Hangover Part Deux as the latter.
I gotta agree with Kurt, Your Highness looks like it stands a good chance of being a good comedy, while The Hangover II is really trying to catch the same lightning in the same bottle. Galifianakis is certainly talented enough to carry the film again, but that’s a tough thing to do even one time.
Which is really weird Gamble, because I don’t think we agree often on comedy stuff. But I like that this is at the nexus point of our taste in humour.
Yeah, The Hangover is a pretty one-note film but when that one note is a historically great comedic performance you can wring a lot out of it. Trying to do it again just seems foolish. I’ll still go see it because I love Galifianakis, but I can easily see that film running out of steam by the midway point.
Your Highness, OTOH, has both Danny McBride in full on moronic zeitgeist mode coupled with David Gordon Green, who has clearly demonstrated he knows how to craft interesting comedies out of seemingly strained setups. That’s a pairing I’ll trust until the bitter end.
Laughed the first time, will no doubt smile the second time. Doubt there’ll be a third time lucky with this overdone, try hard piece of predictable comedy.
I’ll see it. I have the same response as when I see a recurring skit on any sketch show. A bit of dread that I’ve seen it before and know all the main beats, additional dread that I already know who all the weak players are and where the writing will suffer, a bit of comfort knowing though who will be good. I’ll laugh where I expect to laugh, dislike what I expect to dislike, get a few surprises both ways… With comedy familiarity and “comfort” are not that exciting, but they could still put out a good product, and I’ll see it with that in mind.