Hangover Part II

Year: 2011

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Phillips

Review

they tried to go bigger here and up the stakes. to me it didn’t work as well as the first one did because it felt more like one-upmanship than about the unraveling of an outrageous night. bradley cooper wasn’t on his game as much here, but ed helms picked up the slack with a better than expected performance. zach galif… did a fine job with what he was given. ultimately the writing wasn’t as good here as it was on the first one. of course, they stuck with the formula so you’re not going to have a bad time watching the film, just don’t expect the classic that the first one was. the music, the interludes, the writing, the suspense at the end were all a full notch below the original.

edit 5/31/11: it’s reminiscent of those old noirs where the guy/girl wakes up after a bender and thinks s/he killed someone (black angel and blue gardenia). then the whole movie is about retracing everything to see what happened. it’s also like the sequels to the saw movies which all had diminishing returns, at least in part because we knew that the end would throw a curve at us. like godfather 2, this sequel has a familiar plot arc, but more conceit than plot. it also lacks the depth of character that the great sequels have; and, yes, i count rocky 2 in amongst them.

Watched in theater