Plot
Alan’s (Zach Galifianakis) father has died and, while attending the funeral, his Wolf-Pack best-friends – brother-in-law Doug (Justin Bartha), potty-mouthed Phil (Bradley Cooper) and whipping-boy Stu (Ed Helms) – are roped into an intervention to help save him from self-destruction. Unsurprisingly however, things do not go smoothly and, after being intercepted by jowly gangster Marshall (John Goodman), they are forced into a cross-country manhunt for yappy maniac Chow (Ken Jeong) to save the hostaged Doug’s life.
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| You see the general look of pain and tiredness? Yep, Hangover 3. |
Once upon a time, Todd Phillips threatened to kick-start the Hollywood comedy scene with a little-known, and less expected, sense of energetic debauchery. With The Hangover he rendered an addictive mix of crass humour, frenetic dialogue and frantic chaos that promised the beginning of not just a new series, but also a whole new sub-genre. Then The Hangover 2 happened, did the exact same thing all over again and promptly shot its future in the foot. The movement died before it began. Now The Hangover 3 – where it all supposedly ‘ends’ – has been churned out to end the ad-hoc trilogy on a high, but can it avoid the pit-falls of its predecessor?
If Hangover 3 isn’t a complete and resolute reaction to Hangover 2 then I’m the king of France. The narrative formula has been completely diced up – there isn’t even a hangover – and the characterising story beats of the previous films are all but absent. Even the cameos are less ‘cameos’ more ‘actual characters.’ While making for a fresher experience, this has led to the film losing all sense of direction; the story is scrambled and aimless and not in the good ‘ha, look at those drunken idiots’ kind of way. Zipping from Thailand to Mexico to Las vegas, Hangover 3 is a shameless memory trip. Whereas the second film remade the first film in its entirety, the third merely revisits everything that happened before with a wink and a nudge, desperately trying to suck some nourishment from the bones of nostalgia. It’s hard to tell which is worse.
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| Sucking a lolly, or impaled his tongue? |
Then again, The Hangover was never about the story. It’s all about the Wolf Pack, and while the writing is far more miss than hit this time around the undeniable chemistry between the central trio is still proves entertaining, if not somewhat tired. Some visual gags work brilliantly and the dialogue between Stu, Phil and Alan zips with effortless fluency. If Hangover 3 does mark the end of the series (and let’s hope to all the hopes in hopeland that it does) it’ll have done well by its characters at any rate.
Calling Hangover 3 fresh is like saying the toilet makes for a passable drink; it is technically true, at least it can be in the right minute context, it’s just that there are a thousand more appropriate words to use first and what the hell are you doing you maniac? Yes the story is different, but difference is not inherently a good thing, it still needs to be a well-constructed difference that – oh, I dunno – makes sense and has an impression of purpose.
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| Damn, sucking a lolly. |
As it is, Hangover 3 is the epitome of flogging the dead horse. It reeks of laziness and while the cast do their jobs perfectly well that’s just the problem: they are just doing the job. It’s formulaic and baseline, bereft of the energy and playful vigour that brought the original to life. Bradley Cooper in particular seems so thoroughly bored of the entire affair you can practically see him dreaming about last year’s Oscar nomination and wondering how the hell he ended up here again. Ultimately, while the trio do work well together as a comic entity they seem far more like old friends weary of their work and desperate for retirement than excitable up-starts chomping at the bit to blow their genre wide open.
It says a lot that Hangover 3’s base dependence for laughs derive from an Asian man being stupid. Ken Jeong’s Chow was brilliant in the original because he was used sparingly. However, there’s only so much chinglish and sex jokes screeched in a funny accent that a film can take before it nosedives majestically into irritating and wearying, not to mention a teensy bit racist. Elsewhere, John Goodman’s Marshall is good for a some sinister laughs and Melissa McCarthy shows up near the end to steal a few scenes as she is want to do.
That’s your lot. Now sit back and watch tired men scream at things for a couple of hours. But at least it's better than the moist rancid cess-pool of broken hopes and dreams that 21 And Over was.
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| Taking a crap in the desert is never easy, but Dave's friends never know why he brought them with him. |
Verdict
For fans of the series, Hangover 3 offers everything you’ve come to know and enjoy re-jigged for no reason other than ‘at least they can’t complain like what they did for Hangover 2.’ For everyone else, it’s an exercise in apathy, the embodiment of ‘meh’ to make for passable entertainment on a quiet evening. Just please please please let this be the last one.
2/5
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