Film Review: The Hangover Part II

The Hangover part 1 became something of sleeper hit when it was released in 2009. Ever since we've been wanting more of 'the wolfpack', and writer and director Todd Phillips has duly delivered. In the interim, we had to put up with the frankly awful Due Date, which promised to be as good, but failed to deliver on every level. However, Todd's redemption would be consummated if the The Hangover Part II proved to be a return to form...

The plot is much the same as the first. Phil (Cooper), Stu (Helms) and Alan (Galifianakis) awake in a hotel room unable to recall the previous night's events. The only differences are that instead of Las Vegas, they're now in Thailand, instead of it being Doug's (Bartha) wedding, it's now Stu's, and instead of Doug having gone missing, it is Stu's fiance's brother, Teddy (Lee). And so the wolfpack must follow a shattered path of monks and monkeys in order to find Teddy before the big day is ruined.

They say that if it ain't broke, then don't fix it, and there is a degree of truth to this statement. But by the same token it doesn't allow any innovation or creativity, which is the problem with The Hangover Part II. It is quite literally an exact copy of the first film, only in another country. The first time round the formula worked a charm. It was something refreshing and different, cleverly arranging a dumb comedy about a stag night that omits all the 'good stuff' about the night itself and assembles the specifics in memento style flashbacks. One would think that by relocating to the one place on Earth more seedier than Sin City, Bangkok, there would be a wealth more of material to do something different. Rather than using this, Phillips has gone for an exact replication of the first film. In The Hangover each successive event was more audacious than the last which brought surprise and ensuing hilarity. But instead of trying something different, Phillips attempts to copy and paste each scene from the first movie in like for like fashion. While everything is 'bigger', in some feigned vain to make the film more epic, none of it is really an as enjoyable 'WTF' moment as in the first film. Indeed, a lot of it feels padded, especially one story arc involving Paul Giamatti which is particularly devoid of laughs.

All the elements that worked in The Hangover Part II's predecessor, including the characters, have been ramped up a notch to 'just insane'. Where in the first film we found sympathy and charm in Alan, in Part II he has purposely been made more retarded to the point where you almost start to wince. Indeed, Galifianakis' niche as a socially challenged slob is beginning to become tired, fast. While the roles of Phil and Stu as anchoring character and 'the guy all the crazy shit happens to' respectively haven't really evolved, there are two new additions which do add something a bit new. The first is a drug dealing monkey who smokes and acts like people, but it is Ken Jeong's Mr. Chow, endowed with a much larger role, who gets most of the laughs this time out.

The Hangover Part II is essentially more Kanye West, more nudity, more gross outs, but above all, more of the same. And it is because having seen it all before that it is not as funny or original. If you want more of the same then ye shall receive, but it is ultimately disappointing that it shies away from even trying to improve upon the first.

Film Review: Sucker Punch

After attacking her evil stepfather in order to protect her sister, and accidentally killing her in the process, Baby Doll (Emily Browning) is incarcerated into a mental institution for young women. There she meets four inmates; Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jenna Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Jamie Chung), where, through the power of Baby Doll's imagination, they hatch an escape plan which involves battling German zombies, dragons and ginormous samurai.

In a sort of cheap take on Inception's multi-layered consciousnesses, there are three realities at work in Sucker Punch. The first is the heightened reality of the mental institution run by sardonic orderly, Blue (Oscar Isaac), who has somehow managed to carve for himself some power over the patients. This transcends into the second illusory tapestry of a brothel placed over the asylum where Blue is the owner in which he forces the girls to 'dance'. The final reality is the insane steam-punk sci-fi realm of the audacious; worlds which Baby Doll visits when requisitioned to 'dance'. The purpose of these is to create a symbolic narrative for the tasks of obtaining a list of items needed to escape the asylum.

There is no getting around the fact that visually Sucker Punch is stunning. But it is equally pretentious in its allegory, trying to intellectualise something it need not bother with. It attempts to be profound with allusions to female empowerment and sexual oppression, yet ironically ends up being ridiculously misogynistic. It's especially patronising when the film attempts to bestow its 'wisdom' on the audience through a narrator at the beginning and end of the film with some pseudo-philosophical utterance. And it is this which detracts so much from the spectacle which should be the focal point of the film. Yet, even during the eye candy where our young heroines are hithering and thithering through orcs and extra nasty versions of the androids from iRobot, the film fails to create any sense of tension in that you never get the feeling the girls are in any danger. The end result is a soulless, suspenseless and overall pretty insipid excuse for a film. No matter how good this movie looks, all it will elicit from its audience is a "so what?". That is, if they haven't walked out already.

What made Sucker Punch doubly galling was the wooden performances all round. So incessant is the cheesy dialogue and constant whinging that it almost impossible not to shout out "oh, just shut the fuck up, will you?!". It is actually painful to watch in places insofar that the film's main sales gimmick, its sex appeal, instantly washes off as the chicks lose all their swagger on account that they lack any sass. In something I do not think I've never felt about a hero/heroine in a movie, I actually began to hope that someone would just put them out their misery. So cringe worthy is it to watch that even their hotness is no saving grace for this sucker.

One might have come to expect better of director Zack Snyder, who has directed some very visually distinctive films which weren't half bad plot wise either. From his debut Dawn of the Dead, to 300 and the fantastic Watchmen, he has certainly carved himself a stylistic niche in the movie industry. And while Sucker Punch bares all the visceral hallmarks of Snyder, it also marks his first foray into writing, and indeed the first representation of his own imagination. The result is a teenage nerd's deepest fantasies portrayed in a series of fantastical music-videos to blow away your senses. Indeed, the best thing about this film really is the soundtrack, all dark and gothic covers of songs such as 'White Rabbit' and 'Where Is My Mind'. Yet even these are suspect to cliched uses throughout, played in the most obvious of obvious places. This would be fine for a music video or a video game, but not for a movie which needs to be anchored by a storyline and bound in emotive twine. Both of which are lacking and only display Sucker Punch as a typical teenage boy's creative writing assignment, written in the small hours of the morning the day before it was due. Fuelled by innumerable cans of Mountain Dew.

I knew from critics not to expect a great film, but I did expect to be entertained. That was all it had to do. The components are there; hot girls wielding guns in over-the-top action sequences, but it comes out like a small child trying to put the triangular object through the square hole. And then trying to force it to fit by jamming it repeatedly in the wrong slot. It is nothing short of a colossal mess. For suckers only.

P.S. Don't worry, Vanessa Hudgens, I know it's not your fault. I still love you. If you're reading this, call me, K?