The Hangover Part II

And they made another Hangover film.

This time the Wolfpack's in Thailand, and, thanks to the fact that everywhere they go someone speaks English, they're able to loosely piece together what took place during their second rowdy blackout. Character types are solidified and exaggerated. Phil (Bradley Cooper) once again maintains a level-head and calmly leads the pack from one reconstructed debacle to the next. Stu's (Ed Helms) future father-in-law humiliates him regularly and his adventures in Bangkok potentially complicate the bonds of holy matrimony. And Alan (Zach Galifianakis). Alan consistently elaborates upon his peculiar relationship with highly 'alternative' conceptions of the status-quo, and thoroughly demonstrates that he hasn't the slightest clue in regards to socio-anything. Of course, many of my favourite characters are Alanesque and the status-quo is a slippery conception whose malleable determinants relativistically engage opposing cultural semantic designations (internally and externally) which are dependent upon political and economic (and so on) qualifiers and whether or not anyone pays attention to them. But Alan's such a yutz when it comes to Teddy's (Mason Lee) inclusion in the pack, that it was difficult for me to generate any related sympathy.

Although the generation of sympathy is where The Hangover Part II's strength lies, not simply sympathy generated for the slapdash script, which was potentially written in haste in order to cash in on the simmering Hangover phenomenon, perhaps over the weekend or during daily trips to the washroom, but sympathy for reckless behaviour brought on by years of predictable engagements whose consequences resultantly clarify and distinguish their uniformity, for better or worse. Yes these particular things happened and they were the by-product of other general things which also happened and therefore, while problematic in regards to a strict definition of responsibility, accentuate and integrate said responsibilities into a traditional framework nonetheless, fully and completely, through the art of forgiveness.

It's too hot today.

The Hangover

Don't really see what all the hype's about surrounding Todd Phillips's The Hangover. Sure, some scenes are seriously hilarious, and it's fun to watch a group of rowdy dudes hit some cataclysmic highs and lows while partying it up in Vegas. But a lot of the humour is of the "taser to the groin"/"beaten down with a crowbar"/"I'm a lunatic psycho" variety and after a while all the juvenile violence wears a little thin. The lunatic psycho (Zach Galifianakis) has a lot of offbeat points to make that infuse the film with a particularly dark functionally awkward comic sensibility, but it's overt psycho awkward without the mediated ridiculousness that made famous psychos like Serial Mom and many, many Christopher Walken characters so appealing. The over-the-top shenanigans try and establish a dimension of ridiculous awkwardness but the constant jocktacular beatings and bizarre attempts to establish a realist counterpoint destabilize its productivity. It has its moments, like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas accidentally runs into Animal House while recycling a bad "and then I *&*&* her" joke, but those moments are few and far between, and the high-powered "yeah, we're full of testosterone" backbone doesn't help The Hangover convalesce.