THE LEGITIMATE SEQUEL

MOVIE REVIEW:

THE HANGOVER PART III

By:

G.P. MANALO

Starring:

Bradley Cooper

Zach Galifianakis

Ed Helms

A movie like the Hangover wasn’t the kind of movie that you would expect to have a sequel (that will meanwhile form a trilogy). Long-story-short The Hangover is one of the best comedies out there but not something to give sequels to especially when it’s just a re-hash of its predecessor for the sake of getting even greater amount of cash. The only thing worth thinking about for a guy like me (who wasn’t a fan of the last film) is the legitimacy of this film as a sequel. Will this be the actual Hangover sequel or will it just be Hangover 1.9?

The Hangover Part III – The Wolfpack is back for one last adventure together; this time there is no wedding, no bachelor party, and no hangover. Alan has to be taken to a rehab facility because of his “odd” behavior.  They are meanwhile given a mission by a crime-lord known as, Marshall and that mission is to find Leslie Chow and his stolen stash of money from him for 3 days or their friend, Doug will die.

I was expecting a lot from this movie, from the previews I can tell that this could possibly be a legitimate sequel than Part II was supposed to be as it retires from the formula of the original and be a different movie and have a legitimate continuity as a sequel is supposed to be. Thankfully that did came true, I can say that this is a better sequel and movie than the last one but that is not saying much.

The movie is definitely different from the past two movies, like I said there is no hangover but just crazy shenanigans. The way it was executed was rather ballsy; the road it took us to is rather different than your average comedy, the movie is more of a thriller than a comedy but when they do plaster some bits of comedy in that road it did feel out of place, you feel the absence of the comedic element throughout the film when you watch intense scenes. When there was comedy in most of the intense scenes of this movie, I had the feeling of the movie not knowing its true identity, I would’ve liked it if they did stay with the thrilling element of the story but perhaps it is the writing’s fault for not thinking of something clever to pull off in the thrilling set-pieces.

The comedy on the other hand was lacking, there were a few hard laughs here and there (I think the part where I laughed the hardest was the post-credits scene), Most of the jokes feels forced in a lot of situations, the jokes overstay its welcome, there were a few jokes in the movie where it was a good and funny joke but they keep going instead of stopping in the punch line.  I believe those are my gripes about this movie. I was very much entertained with the action set-pieces throughout the movie, there was this one scene in Las Vegas where it was the edge-of-your-seat type of an action scene (almost felt like that Dubai Tower scene from Mission Impossible IV). Story-wise I thought that this movie did have a few genuine twists and the continuity did work, they don’t feel shoe-horned in the movie (like every re-hashed element from The Hangover Part II), the things where they would mention most of the things that happened in the past two movies actually helped progress the story, than it is shoe-horned in some way for the sake of being there for no reason at all. The movie having no hangover didn’t really bother me (It was a ballsy choice). I can see why people will be bothered by the fact that the one thing that made this movie what it is, is not in the movie.  

 Before I go into detail with the cast, the other main gripe I had with this movie is the fact on how they take Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong’s character to center stage too much. Admittedly they did have their moments, but the way they were focused gratuitously was unpleasant to watch. Zach Galifianakis’ Alan had the change of character in this movie where he is an asshole that is not the loveable type that he was in the first one, we’ve seen it in the second one and the way they handled that in this movie is even worse. It was bearable to watch him do some first world problem type of jokes and the obliviousness of the character did go out of hand that it ends up being annoying (my friend even labeled him as “the type of guys he would kill” that’s how annoying he was). What’s even worse is that his attitude was more of an excuse as a plot device, which was handled very poorly in the movie due to the lack of cleverness the writing did give him in this movie. Ken Jeong’s character is the focal point of this movie, he was funny for the most part in this movie but like Alan they went really crazy with his character, his character did have some moments where I laughed out loud in the theater but most of the times it is rather bearable to watch as well, the cast in every 10 seconds of the movie stresses the fact on how crazy or out of his mind, he is and they would say it out loud for the audience to understand.

 

The remaining cast like; Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Justin Bartha were just riding the train for this. Like I said earlier, the movie spends it’s time on doing comedic timing. These 3 actors had some little time to shine when it comes to comedy; they were more in the awkward position of the joke while Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong do their thing. John Goodman felt a bit under-used I wished they explored his character a little bit more, I would’ve like to see him bring out his comedic chops (maybe in a Big Lebowski-esque way) but he is more of the thriller-element than being the comedic element of the movie. Even, Melissa McCarthy is in this movie for the latter half, she felt like she was shoe-horned in there just to be a plot device for Zach Galifianakis’ character’s story, like John Goodman I was expecting that she’d bring out some of her famous comedic chops (especially when she was in a movie that is almost similar as The Hangover) as well but the writers didn’t really give her anything to do that much. Lastly, there were many cameos here from the first movie and those cameos did work and I enjoyed their scenes.

In the end, I enjoyed this movie to a limited extent (not really saying that much); the movie was lacking in laughs due to the mediocre writing as it never really decides the identity that the movie would keep. The movie was entertaining as it features (surprisingly) intense action, a few hard laughs and some chuckle-worthy jokes. Though most of the jokes in this movie feel forced as it left off being I wasn’t really expecting anybody to pull off an Oscar-worthy performance in a movie like this, the cast is still a stellar cast as they are talented (comedically). This is probably the best rental experience you can ever have if you are a fan of the first movie only but if you love the two movies and you want to see the story conclude, I’d say that you should wait for the ticket prices to go down.  Is it still unnecessary for this movie to have a trilogy? Yes, but now that it went too far it is too late to say, it is a solid conclusion to an unnecessary trilogy.

THE UPS:

+THRILLING ACTION SEQUENCES

+SOME FUNNY MOMENTS

+MOST OF THE PERFORMANCES IN THIS MOVIE
+GENUINE TWISTS
+STORYTELLING

THE DOWNS:

-FORCED PERFORMANCES

-FORCED COMEDIC TIMING

-THE JOKES OVERSTAYS ITS WELCOME

-A BAD MIX BETWEEN THRILLER AND COMEDY

- UNDER-USED COMEDIC ACTORS

MY RATING:

2.5/5 – RENTAL!