Phil (Bradley Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifianakis), and Stu (Ed Helms) head to Thailand for the latter’s wedding. The night before the ceremony they get together for a celebratory drink, bringing with them Teddy (Mason Lee), Stu’s future brother-in-law. The next morning they awake in a seedy Bangkok motel, Teddy nowhere to be found. As they attempt to figure out exactly what the hell happened, their journey leads them all across the city, and each answer they uncover only leads to more questions.

CRITIQUE

Second verse, same as the first. Well, not exactly the same. At least the first verse was funny. This second verse, on the other hand, isn’t funny at all. I did laugh, but two laughs in a movie that runs 100 minutes doesn’t make said movie funny. Makes it awful, in fact.

I wasn’t a huge fan of The Hangover, and I still don’t know how the movie became such a huge hit; it’s not even close to being the funniest movie I’ve ever seen, nor is it one of the cleverest. But it worked, and it did offer up quite a few big laughs. I can remember the person with whom I saw it turning to me at the end and expressing hopes for a sequel. I expressed dismay at the idea, fearing it would be little more than the same damned thing all over again. Now I’m not saying I’m psychic, but...

This movie is the same damned thing all over again. I pity anyone who would attempt such an endeavor, but I bet you could do a side-by-side comparison and discover that the sequel unfolds in almost the exact same manner as the original. Not only does pretty much the same thing happen here, it happens at pretty much the exact same point in the story. Consequently, what was surprising and fresh in the first movie is now stale and obvious (and that includes the big cameo, which here should be a slam dunk but ends up falling flat). You know all of those movies that have been nothing more than crass attempts to cash in on the success of The Hangover? Given just how unsuccessful it is, this movie is more like one of those than it is a genuine follow-up.

It looks as if everyone involved believed the way to go would be to keep the template established by the original and simply flesh it out with stuff that attempts to outdo the original’s memorable bits. So you end up with a smoking monkey instead of a baby, and a transsexual stripper (porn star Yasmin Lee, who seems to be having the most fun) instead of Heather Graham. That’s not writing inasmuch as it writing’s answer to the Search and Replace functions of a word-processing program. It’s lazy, requiring little or no effort on anyone’s part; gay stuff and funny animals are two of the hoariest of comedy clichés. So is scatological stuff involving little kids, which explains why the sequence in which the heroes’ misadventures are revealed finds Galifianakis imaging he and his buddies have regressed to the age of twelve. An adult snorting coke is nothing special, but it automatically becomes hilarious when it’s a kid doing it!

The one thing the sequel doesn’t attempt to outdo is the original’s humor. Truth be told, it often doesn’t attempt humor at all. This isn’t a case of the jokes not being funny, but is rather a case of the jokes simply not existing. I mentioned above that I laughed twice during the entire course of the movie; not only was that at the two jokes that worked, that was at pretty much all of the jokes the movie contains. (For the record, one of those jokes involves a reference to a certain seafood restaurant, the other something the monkey does to a water bottle.) Much like director Todd Phillip’s own Due Date, this movie confuses cruelty with humor, thinking the audience would rather see the characters (who obviously spent the two years between the original and the sequel working on being insufferable) get punched, shot, or covered in pig viscera than do or say something genuinely funny.

The standout sequence here is a car chase, and that’s a shining example of the movie’s faults. You don’t go into a comedy expecting an action sequence to be the most memorable bit. It’s relatively well staged, and it has an energy that’s missing from the rest of the movie (this thing takes forever to get going and then meanders all the way to the finish line), but who cares? I watched as the Beverly Hills Cop flicks said to hell with the laughs and become nothing more than another lame excuse to crash cars, so why would I want to watch this series do the same?

THE VIDEO

The look of the movie mimics that of the original, but this disc’s 2.40:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc--isn’t quite up to the level of the first movie’s high-def presentation. Colors are still warm and bold, pushed close to the point of oversaturation. There’s still a healthy amount of grain, which keeps the image looking film-like, and there’s even some grit mixed in, which complements the ugly nature of the material. But blacks can get a little unsteady at times, and there’s some ugly crush in a few scenes.

THE AUDIO

The audio, on the other hand, sees a small upswing. This movie’s mix is more active than its predecessor’s, giving this disc’s DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track quite a bit to work with. The mix still isn’t consistently active, as some interiors have a tendency to ignore the surrounds or lighten up on atmosphere. Most exteriors, especially those in the busier sections of Bangkok, sound very good, exhibiting a nice sense of bustle. Dialogue sounds good, as does the music (Phillips still loves Wolfmother, and he still overuses hip-hop).

French and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are also included; English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

All of the following are presented in high-def:

What’s dubbed an Unauthorized Documentary (25 minutes) is a joke built around the horrors the production allegedly experienced while shooting in Thailand. It’s not a great joke, but it’s nevertheless funnier than the movie itself.

The Comedy Rhythm of Todd Phillips (7 minutes) takes a look at the director’s working methods.

Not Your Everyday Monkey (3 minutes) focuses on Crystal, the movie’s simian costar. (Crystal also plays Annie’s Boobs on Community, which is cool.)

Bangkok Tour with Chow (3 minutes) finds an in-character Ken Jeong (what, you weren’t expecting him to return?) exploring a few of the locations featured in the movie.

A gag reel (5 minutes) features the usual assortment of on-set goofs and shenanigans.

An action mash-up (1 minute) condenses the movie’s punches, gunshots, and chases down to a brief montage.

Some early copies will include both a DVD copy and a code to access an UltraViolet digital copy.

FINAL THOUGHTS