The Wolfpack is back in The Hangover Part III, and I cannot help but wonder if the guys should have stayed gone.
I’ll admit that Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) are still good for a laugh here and there, but the magic of unpredictability that made their shenanigans-filled trips to Vegas in director Todd Phillips’ Hangover and his Bangkok-set sequel is poof for sure.
If it became evident to y’all that The Hangover Part II was running on fumes like, what...15 minutes into it, as entertaining as it is, then it won’t come as a surprise that the final part of Phillips’ always-envisioned-as-a-trilogy, uh, trilogy is essentially running on empty.
The guy took an instant comedy classic, and muddied it. And for what? Because of huge box office hubris is my theory.
Mercifully, Phillips didn’t put out another by-the-books rethread of the 2009 original as he did in 2011. He and his cast (an interview with Cooper I read online comes to mind, in particular – GTS if you are so inclined) have explained that the reason the sequel stuck to The Hangover’s model was for this culmination.
Right....
Look, I really don’t mean to bust anybody’s nuts here, and go on and on about why I don’t buy those creative-decisions reasonings, because they do tie up nicely in the end. But I’m going anyway.
It just totally bugs me – it always did, actually – that this franchise’s trilogy-ness was so surrounded by this unnecessary secrecy. It cheapened the sequel and it makes this threequel quite whatever. Which is a bummer because had the powers that be been smarter (too harsh?) about it, the overarching mythology of the Wolfpack woulda kept an interest in these movies that would have surpassed the incidental. Y’ know, the insta-nostalgia-fueled curiosity of seeing what sort of trouble the guys could find if they got back together one more time.
I say this because in The Hangover Part III the long con wants to pay off: We find out that the events of four years ago in Vegas were set in motion long before we met Phil and Stu and Alan and their coke-fueled, nudity-prone criminal frenemy Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong), and that that is exactly why the trio must now reluctantly journey back to where it all began to save their good ol’ buddy Doug (Justin Bartha) from a dangerous criminal named Marshall (John Goodman).
Except the long con doesn’t quite pay off. Had Phillips thought to, I dunno, pull a Mitch Hurwitz and littered his previous two movies with Easter eggs for the audience, this entire trilogy business would be easier to swallow. I wouldn’t feel duped, and I wouldn’t think the funnies – even the new ones! – seem tired.
Instead I feel like the Wolfpack outstayed its welcome, and, worse, like it tricked me into staying at the party way too long.
And I never.
My Rating **
Photo: Warner Bros.
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