So this is the big Box office showdown between their biggest audience….males ages 18 to 34. Memorial Day weekend. Ordinarily studios stagger films to avoid similar big blockbuster openings the same weekend. So you wouldn’t open Iron Man against Spiderman. But then again, you wouldn’t open Hangover 3 against Fast & Furious 6 either. Or would you?
This time around there’s no wedding, and no bachelor party. Initially there isn’t even the innocent charm of our lovable bachelors. The film opens with a little too much violence, 57 miles south of Bangkok, where our lovable Mr Chow (Ken Jeong) is escaping prison. On the other side of the world, a “forty-two year old man is living home with his parents” – Alan (Zach Galifianakis) – and he’s in big trouble despite having the voice of an angel (spoiler alert) in an “Ave Maria” funeral scene.
Enter Marshall (John Goodman) a Sopranos-style gangster and some confusion over ‘Black Doug’ (Mike Epps) back from the original Hangover. Marshall wants his gold/money back after a chain of events that were set into motion in the desert from the original film. And it all has to do with Mr. Chow. Of course. And now it has to do with Stu (Ed Helms) and Phil (Bradley Cooper.) As an audience we don’t quite buy the plot nor the reasoning, but it’s clear director Todd Phillips wants any excuse to put the boys on a road trip and add in the insane Chow as a fourth party.
Every ‘Bromance’ longs to be the road trip success of the Hangover, and these guys are the masters of their own genre. But what made them the masters was their “now what do we do?” innocence, that this film lacks. That said, when the story ends up back in Vegas – “It all ends tonight” – the movie grows to a strong and positive conclusion that includes a love interest for Alan named Cassie (Melissa McCarthy) who is the perfect match personifying Galifianakis as she did in Bridesmaids.
Cooper and Helms are in perfect characters throughout and it’s Helm’s ending that steals the show as the credits role. Because let’s face it, without ruining the surprise, Stu couldn’t be Stu without a missing tooth, a tattooed face, and in this case……..see it and see!
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