I find the original Hangover to be overrated. Very funny movie but not something that I would want to watch over and over again. The Hangover Part II sucks. Since the movie is practically an exact copy of the original film, it wasn’t very funny and felt like a cash grab since the first film was such a big success. Now we have The Hangover Part III which is the definition of a mixed bag. I absolutely loved everything about The Hangover Part III. Its story and performances were outstanding and felt like a proper conclusion to The Hangover Trilogy. The biggest problem the movie has is that it’s not very funny and since the movie is a comedy, it’s going to be hard to really recommend seeing The Hangover Part III.
In Hangover III, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) has stopped taking his meds and is thus as irresponsible as ever. This causes his family and friends to stage an intervention to send Alan to a clinic. Alan accepts and Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Doug (Justin Bartha) bring him to the clinic. On the way there they are kidnapped by Marshall (John Goodman) who is out in search of Chow (Ken Jeong) who recently broke out of prison and owes millions of dollars to Marshall. Marshall takes Doug and threatens to kill him unless the Wolfpack finds Chow and brings him to Marshall.
When I said I loved everything about The Hangover Part III. I meant it. Even though there’s no hangover in the movie, the story is beyond entertaining and provided a conclusion that was much better than expected. Part of this is due to the great characters introduced in the first film and the actors who didn’t lose any steam across the three films. Cooper, Helms and especially Galifianakis play their characters extremely well. The supporting cast, which includes Jeong and newcomer Goodman, are great in their roles as well and really make the movie that much more enjoyable.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96TelFMZwHc[/youtube]
The biggest problem The Hangover Part III has is that it’s just not funny. I chuckled a few times throughout the movie but nothing near as laugh out loud funny as the first Hangover. The film has a much darker tone with most of the enjoyment coming from throwbacks to the previous films or the absurdity of some of the characters.
Alan and Chow take up most of the film with characters like Phil and Stu being pushed in the background. Supporting characters like Alan and Chow are only funny in smaller doses so them being the majority of the film and the third time we’ve seen them, their goofiness wears off. Even though they’re still entertaining characters, Alan and Chow shouldn’t have had all the spotlight they got.
THE VERDICT
There’s really not much to say about The Hangover Part III. While its story provided a great conclusion to the series and the performances in the movie were great, the film’s overuse of its over the top characters make the jokes stale before the end of the film. You’ll get a few chuckles out of The Hangover Part III but there are much better films that you should be watching.
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