Susan Granger’s review of “The Hangover, Part III” (Warner Bros.)
Back in 2007, screenwriters Jon Lucas and Scott Moore pitched director Todd Phillips “What
Happens in Vegas,” a raunchy comedy about a bizarre bachelor party in which the groom went missing. Re-titled “The Hangover,” it starred Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis, costing about $35 million to make. After grossing $467.5 million worldwide, a sequel was inevitable, and that raked in a record-shattering $586.8 million. Undoubtedly, this third – and final – installment will be highly profitable too.
Problem is: it’s not a caper, not a comedy. Nobody wakes up, having forgotten what happened. Instead, spoiled, self-centered Alan (Galifianakis) has discarded his meds. After he’s in a fatal freeway accident involving the graphic decapitation of a giraffe, his doting dad (Jeffrey Tambor), dies of a heart attack. Alan’s close friends – stalwart dentist Stu (Helms) and ladies’ man Phil (Cooper) – are determined to get him into an Arizona psychiatric/rehab facility. En route, they’re ambushed.
Alan’s brother, Doug (Justin Bartha), is kidnapped by Marshall (John Goodman), a menacing mobster and his gang, including Black Doug (Mike Epps), who holds the Wolfpack responsible for $20+ million in gold ingots stolen by Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong), the obnoxious, trash-talking Asian gangster who has just escaped from a Thai prison. So hapless Doug is held hostage until Leslie Chow can be brought to justice. After trekking to Tijuana, Mexico, they wind up back in Vegas, where they run into stripper mom Jade (Heather Graham) with her young son, and Alan falls in love with a surly pawnshop clerk (Melissa McCarthy, doing a cameo).
Screenwriter/director Todd Phillips and co-scripter Craig Mazin cynically juggle the genres in a rehash of gross, stale material that’s no longer amusing, not even the smoking monkey. The moronic plot basically revolves around clueless man-child Alan and stereotypically mean-spirited Mr. Chow. As Alan says, “When we get together, bad things happen and people get hurt.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Hangover, Part III” is a tepid 3, followed by a
reminiscent, post-credit epilogue.
