The Hangover Part II

After a lot of trepidation and a little bit of excitement, I went to see Hangover II , the trepidation was over the fact that based on all the early reviews, commercials and trailers Hangover II seemed to be nothing more than a carbon copy of the original, just set in a different location. The little bit of excitement was based merely off of the fact that the first movie was just so funny, I would dare say the funniest comedy of the last 5 years, and since coming out just 2 years ago, The Hangover had become the modern template of R-Rated Comedies.

While the formula is in fact the same, the jokes and situations are not, while I will admit there were times in the movie that I knew exactly what would happen next because of the original, it was easy to dismiss such concerns because the movie was really funny.

I've decided that when I review movies on this thing I will avoid the synopsis of the movie, that is a really popular trick in movie reviews, which is just filler as most people know what movies are about anyways,

There was a lot to like, the performances by Cooper, Helms and Galifianakis were very strong, as they played the characters everyone liked from the original, there is a tendency to highlight what audiences liked the first time around, both from a writing standpoint and performance which comes across more annoying than anything else, the actors did good work in playing these characters and not turning them into imitations. There were some very funny and unexpected points in the movie which I enjoyed, namely a very funny cameo and an incident that Stu gets into.

While the first movie was fresh and original, this one wasn't, by virtue of the fact that a lot of this movie had a been-there-done-that kind of feel, but the change in location, the new situations, and the fresh jokes have made this a very quality sequel, and actually have me hoping for a 3rd movie in the series, which when is the last time anyone wanted a 3rd movie in a comedy series, I'm pretty positive no one was really hoping for a 3rd American Pie movie...but we got it, hopefully after the success we'll get the Hangover Part III, for now Hangover II was a very good movie.

Grade B+