The Hangover Part III

The Hangover Part III

Predicted Rating: 4 Stars

Directed by: Todd Phillips (Old School). Starring: Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Ed Helms (The Office) and Zach Galifianakis (The Campaign)

The third and final instalment of the Hangover trilogy sees Alan (Galifianakis) go off the rails after the death of his father (Jeffrey Trambor). As a result, the remaining members of the wolf pack, Phil (Cooper), Stu (Helms) and Doug (Justin Bartha), decide to give Alan an intervention and send him to rehab. On their way to the centre, they are kidnapped by drug lord Marshall (John Goodman). It is revealed that Marshall was robbed by the gang's old friend Leslie Chow of $21 million in gold. It is now up to the wolf pack (minus Doug who was taken by Marshall as insurance) to track down Chow and return the gold.

The Hangover franchise is an interesting one. The original is the definition of a sleeper hit. Filmed on a relatively low budget ($35 million), there was minimal advertising related to the films release. As a result, it had a fairly modest taking on the opening weekend but through word of mouth, the film took off by week three making it one of the most successful comedies of all times. Faced with what could be a massively popular franchise but left with an original that appeared to be a one trick pony, the studio must become inventive in order to sustain the popularity of the original. For the sequel, essentially the same format was kept, i.e. the search for a missing person after a severe bout of amnesia, but to seem different, it tried to push the line of what was acceptable. On occasions the film was funny but in my opinion, instead of pushing the line, Part II jumped over the line and urinated on the line's cold dead corpse. Here I am really referring to the affair between Stu and the Ladyboy.

The third instalment takes a huge turn in the opposite direction. Like many other parts 3's in a trilogy, The Hangover Part III, takes a much more serious and dark approach in an attempt to seem original and essentially round out the series. This was something I am not really a fan of because it didn't really feel like a Hangover film. They are supposed to be fun and lighthearted whilst still being vulgar, however Part III took itself way too seriously. Don't get me wrong, there were many funny occasions during the film, however they seemed masked behind the seriousness of the action scenes. In the end Part III is no match for the original. It was obvious before watching that Part III would not be as good as Part I, in fact it will be difficult for any other movie to match it, but I thought it would be closer in quality. As a result, Part III is probably closer to Part II, a reasonable movie but there was that slight sense of disappointment after watching them.  

Another interesting point to study in the Hangover series is the character development, or the lack there of. In the first two instalments, the three main character's personal development seemed to stagnate. They often appear to learn from their mistakes but quickly forget what they have learned and make the same mistake over and over. However, this is something I like because the characters, especially Alan, are so unique to start off, it would be a shame to see them change. It is their flaws that make them so lovable and seeing the characters develop would see them lose their charm and essentially rob the movies of so many good moments. Part III is the first in the series that attempts to develop a character, in particular forming a relationship between Alan and a woman. This change was effective because he remained the same old love-to-hate-to-love Alan but we got to see a different side of him. The disappointing part was that the same principle was not applied to the other characters. I would have liked to see some focus applied to the development of Phil and Stu because they seemed to stagnate and almost become boring.

I would like to end with a quick theory, Stu is in fact Wolverine. Not because he has an adamantium skeleton, but because of his ridiculous healing abilities. In Part 1, he recovers extremely quickly from the removal of his own tooth. In Part II, his face tattoo heals almost instantly with no infection even after it was administered in a back alley Thai tattoo studio. I won't specify what it is because it is supposed to be the "shock ending" but in Part III, Stu undergoes a fairly elaborate procedure with absolutely no bruising or scaring the next day. So either he is unconscious for a significantly longer period of time or Stu is in fact Wolverine.

Overall: Takes it self way to seriously and doesn't really feel like a Hangover Film, however I still recommend seeing this film if you have any questions remaining from the first two instalments. 3 Stars.