Marketed as the “epic” conclusion to the Hangover trilogy, it’s fair to say the Warner Bros. marketing department have gone a little overboard.
En route to a rehab clinic after convincing Alan (Galifianakis) to check himself in for a long-overdue detox, “the Wolfpack” are driven off the road by local mob leader Marshall (Goodman). Recounting how their nemesis (/Alan’s close friend) Chow (Jeong) had stolen half of his $42m gold heist, Marshall takes the ever-expendable Doug (Bartha) hostage, tasking the other three with tracking Chow down and reclaiming the missing loot before their best friend gets it.
The Hangover Part III feels very bland in comparison to the admittedly ridiculous events of the first two movies. There’s nothing shocking, funny and little to engage the audience as I laughed just once in the whole film. For a comedy the writing really isn’t good enough while the actors aren’t given a chance to improvise, giving away all of the other potentially funny moments in the trailer probably didn’t help too.
It’s becoming a theme with Todd Phillips now but The Hangover Part III feels angry and ignorant where a playful and mischievous tone would have served the film so much better. There isn’t anything particularly offensive unlike in the last two movies, yet the film will do anything but charm you as a viewer. As the plot takes twists down a more action-heavy route, the various action sequences, car chases and gun battles leave the comedy feeling more more like an action film. And while Bradley Cooper has proved himself in more physical roles, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Ken Jeong are certainly not action stars.
At least The Hangover Part III isn’t another carbon copy of the franchise’s debut, but instead it’s just wholly unremarkable. Part III steps away from the “hangover” idea and instead they’re dealing with follow-up issues from the last two film, but the problem is that there was barely enough depth to these characters to pull us through the first 100 minutes, now five hours later they’ve become t horoughly boring. And considering how little the stars seemed to care about the film while conducting their press tour around the world, it looks like they were bored by the end too.