Sequels are a matter-of-fact reality in the cinema, where the majority of commercially successful films generate a successor. But rarely has a movie stuck to the contours of the original with such slavish devotion as the follow-up to the raucous 2009 comedy does. In a roundabout tribute to the picture’s concept – a group of guys wake up without memories of the previous night after a bachelor party and must reconstruct their debauchery to find a missing friend – everyone involved in assembling The Hangover Part II woke up one morning and forgot that the original existed.
The similarities are, frankly, extreme. Director Todd Phillips, returning with the same principal cast, hasn’t just transplanted the concept from Las Vegas to Bangkok, he’s also duplicated the structure, the ticking clock driving the narrative, a chunk of the supporting roles, the musical interlude, the closing credit sequence, and even some of the cameos. It gets to the point where you’re surprised by what’s not revisited.
That the resulting film is passable is a tribute to the raucous comic energy and strength of the ensemble that made The Hangover a surprise hit; even a not quite there remake still has some genuinely funny moments and pleasurable interplay. Nonetheless, Part II’s plot isn’t quite as elegantly turned as the original, which was a kind of warped detective mystery where the sleuths were coming down off unwelcome narcotics. The parts don’t fit together so easily, and the pacing drags at points as the central trio – Bradley Cooper’s glib Phil, Zach Galifianakis’ moody idiot Alan and Ed Helms’ nebbish dentist Stu – await their next clue.
Galifianakis snuck a concerned lunacy into the first outing, casually one-upping his character’s misunderstanding, but Phillips cuts to him too often this time and there are points where he’s obviously hoping that the portly comic can paper over the cracks for him with an aside. The filmmaker actually gets more from Helms, who reveals a rare talent for hysterically guilty regret as his gawky frame flails around the screen in shocked disbelief that his life has gone off the rails once more. (This time his Stu is the groom, with the missing person his bride to be’s younger brother.)
Phillips shot the original in tight set-ups that ushered his mismatched trio towards disaster – they never quite had room to pause and take stock. But here there are numerous airborne shots, pulling back from the protagonists, which mainly seem to emphasise that the picture was shot on location. Yet Bangkok itself is rarely explored as a locale, and most of the speaking roles fall to foreign visitors and expatriates; the original worked by creating bewildered panic that reached a daft and comic fever pitch, too often this take makes do with some yelling.
However, amidst the recycling and approximation, there’s one radical concept. Homophobic jibes are a constant in mainstream American comedies, where groups of men are very careful to emphasise their platonic friendship by denigrating each other with allusions to gay sex, but in the otherwise conservative The Hangover Part II it’s made extremely clear that one of the lead characters had sex with a transsexual. It’s considered part of the story’s humour, but it’s also accepted as being just another facet of a bender gone out of control; the sky doesn’t fall and the character isn’t punished. In a disappointingly blase and repetitive sequel, it’s an extraordinary addition.
