The Hangover III – Review

The Hangover III – Review

Once again in The Hangover III we see the Wolf Pack Trifecta of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zack Galifanakis innocently again hitting the road to some seemingly benign destination only to be drawn to a series of unintentional, improbable and haphazard circumstances with strangers and chaotic peril.

This time we find where the gang have decided to help Alan (Zack) regain some emotional footing in his zany life through a group intervention with the expressed idea of having him spend some time at a mental health clinic as a means of hoping that he start acting more like a 42 year old adult and a lot less like a 14 year old just coming into puberty.

With Alan coming along again as the seemingly perpetual throw away Wolf Packer for plot purposes only, the four journey together to the desert clinic where their trip is interrupted by a car jacking resulting in all four being held captive albeit briefly. Why? Apparently a big time hood named Marshall (John Goodman) knows that there is some history between the 4 travelers and a former friend - nemesis of theirs named Leslie Chow who apparently has taken something of extreme value from him and unless Phil, Stewart and Alan don’t bring Chow to him he is going to kill (throw away Wolf Packer) Alan in 48 hours. And thus the hilarity begins. Well, I thought it would be hilarious. Actually, it wasn’t hilarious very much.

Instead, of what we had from the 2009 original film which was a light hearted, funny, seemingly both believable and relatable tale of not remembering what happened the night before because of alcohol intoxication, we are now left with what will be clearly the final installment of this franchise as a much darker more violent story of mindless circumstances that were suppose to be funny. Did I laugh, of course I did (occasionally) and there were a few scenes that seem to be nicely executed, but what is lacking in this effort is the genuine humor throughout their peril.

T.H.3 jokes seem less like something that naturally made you laugh, smile and was funny, and more like the numbing affects of Novocain; basically not the feeling I was expecting about 4 guys and alcohol. Oh, did I mention that there was not one scene where anyone was seen drinking any alcohol. Imagine a move called The Hangover without any alcohol consumption. Any way I digress

Directed again by Todd Phillips, T.H.3 was made because for Hollywood it has been and will probably be a huge cash cow again; after all that’s why they make movies anyway. But at it’s best this film is a rental and not something you should spend any time watching other than a rainy day with nothing else better to do.           

But don’t fret if you really think that we saw the last of this type of film, I kid you not, in a few months this year a film called “Las Vegas” will be released starring Michael Douglas, Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Klein with the plot being four best friends, in their late sixties, throw a bachelor party in Las Vegas for the last one of them to be getting married. Sound familiar. So sad

2 – 1/2 Stars