THE HANGOVER 2- Review

'Four friends go and have a bachelor party ahead of (Name)'s wedding, and wind up having a wild drunken night in (Location). When they wake up the next morning, they have the mother of all hangovers, and find some gangsters are after them, looking for their (Noun). Worse still, they've managed to misplace (Name) and have to find him before the wedding. Oh, and there's a (Animal) in the bathroom.'

The Hangover Part II is, in every respect, mad-lib filmmaking. The structure of this sequel is practically identical to the original film, but this time it's mild-mannered dentist Stu, getting married in Thailand. He reluctantly invites along his best friend Phil and giant man-child Alan, and lives to regret it when they all wake up in Bangkok. Stu's future brother-in-law is missing, and apparently, "Bangkok has him now."

Part of what made The Hangover so enjoyable, for me at least, was how unexpected it was. Some fans are already saying this sequel is better, if the midnight screening crowd at Cineworld in Middlesbrough is anything to go by, and I fully anticipate that those people will say that it's unfair to compare to the original. Worse sequels have had this defence applied, but the similarities are so intrinsic here that it's impossible not to compare.

If this film itself were a hangover, you couldn't have had too much to drink, because prior events in these characters' lives are all too sharp in the viewers' memories. Of course you have to compare this to the original! Expecting otherwise is like expecting someone to like your dog better than any of the other dogs they've ever encountered. If it wags and chases its tail, barks, and has a wet nose, it's still a blimmin' dog. The Hangover Part II is pretty much of the exact same breed as its predecessor, but it's considerably more aggressive.

Director Todd Phillips has been promising that shit gets real when the Wolfpack reaches Bangkok, and that the sequel is wilder, darker and meaner than the original. The middle word there is a particular favourite as abstract concepts go. In all of the things that this one goes further with than The Hangover, it's not really funnier. As mentioned, I enjoyed that film because it was unexpected, but the whole rehash of the original is what lets the comedy down in this one.

The Hangover, in addition to all of its enjoyable performances and quotable dialogue and surreal twists, was a detective story. Our detectives, ably played by Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms, were all hapless and recovering from the biggest night out of their lives, but watching them pull together to solve the mystery worked so well for me because I didn't know where it would go next. Cooper, Galifianakis and Helms are all equally as good here, but in this instalment, I could easily guess where the plot was going.

If your viewing experience is anything like mine, you'll realise this in one of the film's more inventive moments, in which we see a flashback of events up to that point in the film, as re-enacted by young children. It's different, and surreal, and well-executed, but it didn't make me laugh. Some of the best gags are frittered away in the marketing too, like Alan's baldness and Stu's tattoo and the return of Ken Jeong as flamboyant gangster Chow. But the boldness of the film is almost all bravado and no real innovation.

Without the ability to surprise, the film goes in for shock tactics instead. It's harsher, alright, to the point where some will actually be offended. There was no danger of that in Vegas, which is somehow exponentially safer than Bangkok. Also, I know for a fact that a second act twist is lifted wholesale from an early draft of the first film, meaning that the sequel actually mined stuff that wasn't good enough to make it into the original. It's not all bad news though- one of the welcome reprisals of the first film comes in the closing credits montage, and that's easily the funniest part in each film.

The Hangover Part II is remarkably zippy, for a film in which all of the path laid ahead will be predictable to anybody who has seen the first film. I think that comes down to the fact that the performers are still on top form, their camaraderie preserved best of all, alongside just about everything else from two years ago. If Phillips and these guys want to make Part III, more power to them, and I'll see it. But I'd really, sincerely hope that they bring something different along next time. It's More Of The Same, capital M, O, T and S, but if you still really love the first one, I doubt you'll object too strongly to revisiting the Wolfpack.

The Hangover Part II is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen The Hangover Part II, why not share your comments below? I'm taking a week off next week, but I'll return on June 6th with my review of X-Men: First Class.

 I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

Plain Trains and Automobiles- DUE DATE Review

At what point does something shift from being a loving homage or a "thematic remake" to being an all-out rip-off? The answer is probably to be found somewhere to be found between the greenlighting of Due Date and its arrival in cinemas this week. In almost every respect, I preferred it when it was called Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

A hectored businessman is travelling home and ends up stuck with a loveable buffoon who gets him in and out of all kinds of scrapes. The basic skeleton is the same, and there's not a lot of meat on the bones- the businessman is Peter Highman, whose wife is giving birth to their first child at the end of the week. An altercation with Ethan Tremblay, the buffoon, gets him on the no-fly list, and the two of them cross America together before the arrival of Peter's first-born.

Todd Phillips is clearly on top of the pile at the moment, what with his uber-successful comedy The Hangover becoming one of the big sleeper hits of 2009 and working its way into the affections of a million Facebook users who like to start arbitrary groups with names like "Doug's in the trunk, LOL JK, it's a naked Asian guy with a stick". When you make that film, you're allowed to make whatever you want to make next, within reason.

Phillips resolved to go backwards, not only by making a film closer to his Road Trip or Old School than to The Hangover, but also by plagiarising from a much better John Hughes film. I don't want every film to cite its influences as blatantly as Easy A professed its roots in the Hughes canon, but this film doesn't have a high enough IQ for me to believe Phillips knew he was ripping off Planes, Trains and Automobiles. If he did, that just makes it even worse, because the only clear benefit of his perspective on the story comes in the form of pot jokes and a masturbating dog.

The story beats are almost exactly the same too. Peter gets beat up when he loses his cool with someone, a rental car is destroyed, Peter considers abandoning Ethan- all things that happened before, and happened with more humour and warmth, to Neal Page and Del Griffith back in 1987. That film was tender in the way that the very best of John Hughes' work is funny and tender. Due Date is a lot more callous, appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Robert Downey Jr. steps in for Steve Martin, and astoundingly, the film manages to make him unlikeable. After a dazzling run of great roles from 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang up until now, this film really made me dislike Robert Downey Jr. Do we give a shit if he gets home on time? No, because the only urgency about his character's odyssey is supposed to come from Michelle Monaghan, who literally phones in her peformance as the expectant mother of Peter's child. Some sympathy with Peter is sorely needed and sadly absent, when you consider what he's contrasted with.

Fresh off of The Hangover, Zach Galifianakis is another man-child as Ethan. In John Candy's performance as Del, there was a real human being visible. He has that absolutely wonderful monologue where he retorts to a blistering rant by Steve Martin by saying he's happy in himself, and that he has loved ones who like him for who he is too. It's a sober moment that a cartoon character like Galifianakis would never get, and I really don't think he has the range to pull off something like that. Instead, Ethan is calculated to annoy the shit out of Peter, and I dare say the audience as well, and act without any recognisable indication of human behaviour.

It all rings false, and although it's not without its moments, it's all very meticulously pitched towards being a hit of the exact same type as The Hangover. Galifianakis actually says "LOL JK" at one point for that very purpose, but even with the spontaneous group-making tendencies of its target audience, I can't see there being many groups called "The Pilgrims Built The Grand Canyon" or "I Hate It When I'm Smoking Weed For My Glaucoma And I Get Arrested" or "I Gut-Punched A Six Year Old LOL". Well, maybe that will happen, but for all of the moments I just said the film has, I'll be damned if I can remember many of them.

Due Date is a waste, really. It's Todd Phillips' failure to realise that the success of The Hangover happened by circumstance and not by design. Indeed, given how most of his movies are road movies, I'm surprised at how long its taken him to make a film that takes off Planes, Trains and Automobiles so blatantly. And pitched as it is for the generation who loves The Hangover, it really pales in comparison. Too many plot turns ring false and too many jokes fall flat. My hopes are suitably lowered for next summer's The Hangover Part II.

Due Date is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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If you've seen Due Date, why not share your comments below? Can you believe Jamie Foxx is in this movie? Whatever happened to the Oscar-winning actor whose name used to mean something in cinema? Eesh.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.