Revisited - The Hangover Part 2

So today I was scrolling through my TV channels and found Hangover Part 2. I wasn't always a fan of The Hangover Series and found some jokes fall flat as well some acting being rather stale to comparison of other actors in the film. The plot is also sometimes predictable but mostly its a pleasant movie to watch but nothing award winning. Since there was nothing else on, I decided to watch it and was pleasantly surprise. I'm not sure how to describe it but it was one of those films that just made you forget about the world around you and engage with it's narrative. Of course a film doesn't have to be great to do that but you enjoy it nonetheless.

Its like opening a time capsule and finding a toy you enjoyed playing with in the past and you have this small moment of joy I guess and very few films do that nowadays to which they just bank on cool CGI to get your money. You can see this film was made with love as well as that they all had fun making it. Its a joy to watch and a fun one at that. Of course, the series does get repetitive in going through the same plot points but nevertheless you still want to be there along for the ride because its an enjoyable popcorn eating film that you can sit back and just watch instead of having to critique it.

The Hangover Part II is a 2011 American comedy film produced by Legendary Pictures and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is the sequel to the 2009 film The Hangover and the second installment in The Hangover trilogy. Directed by Todd Phillips, who co-wrote the script with Craig Mazin and Scot Armstrong, the film stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Jeffrey Tambor, Justin Bartha, and Paul Giamatti.Development began in April 2009, two months before The Hangover was released. The principal actors were cast in March 2010 to reprise their roles from the first film. Production began in October 2010, in Ontario, California, before moving on location in Thailand. The film was released on May 26, 2011 and became the highest-grossing R-rated comedy during its theatrical run.

A third and final installment, The Hangover Part III, was released on May 23, 2013.

Two years after the events of the first movie in Las Vegas, Stu Price, Phil Wenneck, Alan Garner and Doug Billings travel to Thailand for Stu's upcoming wedding to Lauren, his fiancé. Much to Alan's dismay, they are joined by Lauren's younger brother, Teddy. At the rehearsal dinner, Lauren's father reveals his disapproval of Stu during a toast. Later that night, Stu hesitantly joins Phil, Doug, Alan and Teddy for a beer. Sitting at a campfire and roasting marshmallows, the group toast to Stu and Lauren's future happiness.

The following morning, Phil, Stu and Alan, along with gangster Leslie Chow—whom Alan befriended after Las Vegas—and a chain-smoking capuchin monkey, awaken in a filthy hotel room in Bangkok. Stu has a face tattoo (a replica of Mike Tyson's) and Alan's head is completely shaved. They cannot find Teddy, and discover only his severed finger. Chow begins to relay the events of the prior night, but he collapses after snorting a line of cocaine. The trio concludes that Chow died of a cocaine overdose. Panicked, the trio disposes of Chow's body in the hotel's ice box. Through a tip from Doug who is still at the resort (he left the campfire earlier than the others), they go to a police station to pick up Teddy but are given a wheelchair-bound elderly Buddhist monk, who knows more about what happened. However, he refuses to reveal anything, having taken a vow of silence. After finding a business card, they travel to the smoldering ruins of the business.

They enter a nearby tattoo parlor where Stu got his tattoo, and they learn that they started a fight that escalated into a riot. The trio returns the monk to his Buddhist temple, where they are encouraged by the head monk to meditate. Alan is able to recall that they had been at White Lion strip club, where they learn that Stu was sodomized by a stripper named Kimmy. Upon exiting, the trio is attacked by two Russian mobsters who take the monkey, and one shoots Phil in his arm.

After Phil is treated at a clinic, Alan confesses that he had drugged some of the marshmallows from the previous night with muscle relaxers and ADHD medication in order to sedate Teddy, as he feared the others were going to replace him with Teddy, but accidentally mixed up the bags. Phil and Stu become furious that Alan drugged them again. Stu blames Alan for ruining his life and attacks him, but Phil breaks it up and tells them that they have to stick together.

They notice something on Alan's stomach: an address and a time for a meeting. They meet a gangster named Kingsley, who demands Chow's bank account password by the following morning in exchange for Teddy. They return to the hotel to try to find Chow's password, only to discover that he is still alive. They steal the monkey, who had the code given to him and put inside his jacket for safe-keeping by Chow, back from the Russian mobsters through a violent car chase, during which the monkey is shot and injured. After taking the code and leaving the monkey outside a veterinary clinic, the group completes the deal with Kingsley. Suddenly, Interpol agents appear and arrest Chow. Kingsley turns out to be an undercover agent, who tells the trio that the police had used the information that Teddy had disappeared to arrest Chow and Kingsley actually does not know where Teddy is.

Desperate and out of clues, Phil calls Doug's wife Tracy to tell her they cannot find Teddy. Stu decides to call off the wedding and live in Bangkok and say that Teddy died. While Alan is playing a game of Ms. Pac-Man the power goes out again. Stu suddenly realizes where Teddy is. The trio rushes back to the hotel to find Teddy who is in the elevator unharmed, albeit still missing a finger. Teddy had woken up early in the morning to get more ice for his severed finger after the first bucket of ice had melted, but became trapped after the power went out. The four use Chow's speedboat, the Perfect Life, the keys for which were in Teddy's pocket, to travel back to the wedding reception.

Arriving on land just as Lauren's father is about to cancel the wedding, Stu makes a defiant speech where he rejects being boring and instead states that he is in fact quite wild. Impressed, Lauren's father gives the couple his blessing. After they exchange their vows, Alan presents Stu with a special gift at the post-reception dance: a musical guest performance by Mike Tyson. Teddy later discovers that he had taken many pictures during the night on his cell phone. The group, along with Tyson, agrees to look at the pictures together once (some of which reveal Teddy lost his finger playing the knife game) before erasing the evidence of their exploits once again.

Overall, this movie isn't anything to write home about but it checks all the boxes of being a movie thats worth watching. I wouldn't say its a film that you seek out but are rather pleasantly surprise to find it on TV where you can sit back and watch or when you clean your DVD cabinet looking for something to fill your time. It's a great movie because it works to engage you with its interesting characters and fun narrative. The movie drags at times, characters stretch there jokes sometimes too much, and its a bit repetitive but this movie has quality and one worth seeing for yourself. This has been Revisited, thanks for reading. Ricardo Signing Off