THE HANGOVER PART II: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE HANGOVER PART II (Dir. Todd Phillips, 2011)

The sequel to the largest grossing R-Rated comedy of all time is exactly everything I thought it would be. I haven't seen such a blatant retread of a huge hit's premise and jokes since AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL.

Again we have Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms playing the man-child protagonists who wake up to find themselves in way over their heads after a night of stag party debauchery. I actually recycled that sentence largely from my review of the first one - I figure if they can recycle it, so can I.

This time the guys are in Bangkok. Helms is about to get married to Jamie Chung, and Cooper, Galifianakis, and Justin Bartha are there to attend the wedding.

Chung has a disapproving father (Nirut Sirichanya) who humiliates Helms at their reception dinner, so you know Helms will stand up to him in the end.

Bartha went missing in the first one, so their idea of mixing it up is to have Chung's younger brother (Mason Lee) disappear.

The night starts at a resort in Thailand where Helms is talked into having just one beer with the "Wolfpack," as Galifianakis calls them, on the beach with a bonfire. What could go wrong?

Just like before (okay I'll stop saying that - it could get exhausting) the camera pans up to the sky and the screen fades. We flash forward and we're in a scummy hotel room in the city of Bangkok. Galifianakis's hair head has been shaved, Helms has a Mike Tyson tattoo on his face, there's a capuchin monkey jumping around, and there's a severed finger with Lee's school ring on it among all the bottles, cocaine, and other debris from the previous night.

Oh yeah, there's also the crazy coked up Ken Jeong who Galifianakis invited as his +1 to the wedding sleeping on the floor.

So the 'Wolfpack" hit the streets to figure out what happened to Lee and they wind through a convoluted scenario involving Monks, she-male prostitutes, Russian thugs, and an obligatory car-chase that includes the classically clichéd fruit cart scene.

The problem is this material is geared more for shock value than laughs. The leads have an energy going in their performances, playing amusingly off each other, but while Cooper and Helms almost overdo their effort, Galifianakis doesn't seem to care.





Galifianakis can be funny with just an expression, and his eccentric childishness has its moments, but wears thin way before the halfway mark.

In the middle of it all there's a surprising appearance by Paul Giamatti, who has a nice sharp scene or 2 - I guess to go further about it would be a Spoiler!

Otherwise, despite the absorbing locale, and a few good lines here and there, THE HANGOVER PART II is a tedious, definitively unnecessary, and supremely unsatisfying sequel.

Actually the photos showing what happened during the guys' blackouts during the end credits are kind of funny, but again that's something they did in the first one.

More later...

CEDAR RAPIDS Gets Ed Helms Out Of The Office

CEDAR RAPIDS (Dir. Miguel Arteta)

This new comedy is only playing in Raleigh at the Regal North Hills Stadium 14, and it’s in one of their smallest theaters. That’s a shame because it’s a winning film that’s as charming as it is lovably crude, wonderfully carried by Ed Helms (The Office, THE HANGOVER).

The straight-laced and extremely dorky Helms is a small town insurance salesman whose boss (Stephen Root) sees as the “kid who was going places, but then…didn’t.”

When hot shot salesman Thomas Lennon (The State, Reno 911) dies from auto-erotic asphyxiation, Helms is sent in his place to the annual insurance industry convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Helms, who amusingly is having a fling with his much older former elementary school teacher (a sly Sigourney Weaver), is nervous about going, especially since he’s never left his home town or been on an airplane before.

Upon leaving, Root warns Helms to stay away from John C. Reilly as a sleazy possible client poacher, and, yep, that’s who he turns out having to room with at the hotel.

Luckily his other room-mate is the more sincere Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Clay Davis from The Wire) who uses snappy phrases like L.A.C. (Loud And Clear) and “and at the end of the day that’s N.T.S. – that’s Not Too Shabby.”

There’s also the surprisingly appealing performance by Anne Heche as another convention veteran who ferociously flirts with Helms.

So our hapless hero Helms’ goal is to win the coveted 2 Diamonds Award by schmoozing insurance association president Kurtwood Smith (most likely best known as the dad on That ‘70s Show, but I prefer to think of him as the villain in the first ROBOCOP).

But Relliy’s partying antics, the temptation of Heche, and a brewing bribery scandal may thwart Helm’s path to victory.

There are a lot of laughs in CEDAR RAPIDS, most of the clever character based variety that was so missing from the raunchy-for-the-sake-of-raunch of the recent Farrelly Brothers flick “Hall Pass”.

In fact, there have been few comedy films lately that feel like they have real empathy for the people on the screen. Helms gives us a guy whose naivety we initially laugh at, but come to laugh with as the film goes on.

He comes off like a big kid, but not like man-children in the films of Judd Apatow, he’s more about the wide-eyed giddy feeling of learning things for the first time.

In this movie that giddiness is hilariously endearing, and at the end of the day that’s N.T.S.

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My Last Night At The Varsity Theater & THE HANGOVER

As I reported before, The Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill, N.C. is in a period of transition. The owner, Bruce Stone, is still in negotiations and nobody knows whether it'll remain open as it changes hands or if it will close unsold. This is all so timely as I will no longer be working at the theater. Since my move to Raleigh I've decided I no longer want to commute, so yesterday was my last night working my all-time favorite part-time job. We were opening 2 new movies - oddly enough both feature Mike Tyson - so I needed to change the marquee for the last time. Of course, it rained last evening (which seems to be a Thursday night tradition here) so I wasn't feeling particularly sentimental as I climbed the ladder.

All evening I fielded questions about the fate of the theater. Stone joked last weekend that our official line to everybody was: "We're confused." So we've been saying that (or variations thereof). David Fellerath wrote this insightful article in this week's Independent about not just the Varsity and its sister theater the Chelsea's fate but about the bleak business and uncertain future of independent art houses these days:

The Unknown Futures Of Chapel Hill's Varsity And Chelsea Theaters: The Moviegoer's Lament (Independent Weekly June 3rd, 2009)

Another Thursday night tradition is to have a late showing (not open to the public unless you know somebody) of the new movie that is opening the next day. I definitely wasn't going to miss the late show my last night at the Varsity:

THE HANGOVER (Dir. Todd Phillips, 2009)

"A bachelor party movie where you never see the bachelor party" is how director Phillips, responsible for the likes of OLD SCHOOL and STARSKY & HUTCH, described this Las Vegas-set silliness to The New York Times. Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms play the overgrown child protagonists who wake to find themselves in way over their heads after a night of stag party debauchery. In their trashed hotel suite they find that the groom (Justin Bartha) is missing, Helms has a tooth missing, a Bengal tiger is in the bathroom, and there's a baby in the closet. They remember nothing of what happened so you might expect more than a little of DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR? mixed with just a dash of THREE MEN AND A BABY and you wouldn't be far off.

Galifianakis, in the Belushi/Jack Black role, has the funniest lines and frequently steals the movie from his co-stars. The one-liners come fast and furious but sadly there are a lot of stale comic stylizations like, for instance, a Tarentino slow-motion group walk towards the camera with "Who Let The Dogs Out" blaring on the soundtrack. As the events of the night before are revealed there are some tasty turns - Mike Tyson, playing himself, as the tiger's owner and Heather Graham as a hooker that Helms finds he's now married to have their charms but some other plot points and clichéd character bits fall flat.

As likable as the leads are, THE HANGOVER is only fitfully funny but I would still say it's has enough genuine laughs in it to meet my comedy quota. It is a definite improvement over Phillips previous lowbrow fare as it shows he can handle natural feeling rhythms, timing, and tone. While another draft (or 2) on the screenplay probably wouldn't have made this a comedy classic, it feels a tad undercooked so this is a pretty reserved recommendation. However, I suspect it may have a re-watchability factor and that some elements might rub me better sometime down the line. Maybe, like a real hangover, when the annoying pangs wear off I'll be able to remember the best of the original buzz.

Okay! So that was my last night working at the Varsity. I'll miss working on Franklin Street and downtown Chapel Hill in general. I would usually post recent pictures of the marquee on the sidebar on this blog and that's something I'll also miss. But don't worry, this change won't affect this blog much - I love movies and will continue to see as many movies as possible and tell you what I think. I'll also keep you updated on the respective fates of the Varsity and Chelsea Theaters...so please - stay tuned.

More later...