THE HANGOVER: PART II

THE HANGOVER is on HBO and is playing quietly in the background while I'm writing this. When I saw it for the first time, I had no idea what to expect. The trailer made it seem pretty funny and worthy of my eight bucks. I got exactly what I wanted out of it and now it's one of those movies that I'll click on for background noise while I'm on the computer. It's not a great movie, but it does what it was intended to do. You just can't think about it too much.

That said, I wasn't excited to see the sequel at all. What worked best about the original is that it came out of nowhere—no hype and no expectations to live up to. That wouldn't be the case this time around.

After it was released and critics were bashing it left and right, I was kind of set to defend it a little bit. The director, Todd Phillips, only knows how to make one movie. If you look at his oeuvre—actually, I take that back. Let's say 'body of work' instead. Oeuvre should be saved for people with talent.

If you look at his body of work, every film he's directed has basically had the same premise, the same set of characters and the same beats. ROAD TRIP, STARSKY AND HUTCH, OLD SCHOOL, SCHOOL FOR SCOUNDRELS, DUE DATE are essentially the same. They've got funny moments, but those funny moments are largely due to the talent he's able to assemble. So I was all set to go with that and use that as a basis for an argument about how people were being a little too hard on the sequel.

Then I actually saw THE HANGOVER: PART II.

Now I take it all back.

It is honestly one of the laziest, most uninspired movies I've ever seen. And I've seen some shit.

Phillips and his writers didn't even try. I know that's the biggest complaint, but really, they didn't. At all. If you played part one and part two at the same time on two different screens, I can almost guarantee it would look 90% the same the entire time, beat for beat. They told the same type of joke but just a little worse, they did the same pseudo-action bits but just a little lazier.

It was really kind of depressing.

I wouldn't have minded watching a movie where I got to hang out with Stu, Alan and Phil for another couple of hours but this wasn't it.

And unfortunately, since THE HANGOVER: PART II has already pulled in almost a quarter of a billion dollars, a part III is all but assured.

That also means that the people who loved both installments will surely love the third and we'll have to listen to these idiots talk about how THE HANGOVER TRILOGY ranks up there with the best of them.

Those people are why America is doomed.