It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
View MoreThis is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
View MoreAll that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.
View MoreThis is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
View More'The Hangover Part II' is very much a cut and paste job of the original 'Hangover', but when you consider what a huge success the 2009 movie was, can you really blame them? I found both films hilarious and am pleased they decided to go with the same approach for the second film rather than rolling the dice and risk ruining something special.Cooper, Helms and Galifianakis are all excellent and provide plenty of laughs with such ridiculous material. Galifianakis has the ability to crack you up with his facial expressions alone - some of the scenes with Alan in this film are priceless. 'The Hangover Part II' is another great comedy film, almost identical to the first film and equally funny.
View MoreMore of a remake of the first 'Hangover' movie than a sequel to it, this second entry finds the friends with short term memory loss and a bad hangover again after yet another bachelor party. The setting is different though, and with the action taking place in Bangkok, there is something fresh to the friends having to contend with unfamiliar territory and locals who do not speak their language in a quest to piece together what they have forgotten. There are also some fun references to the first movie, like Stu instantly thinking "the roof!", however, with the basics of the plot so strikingly resembling the first movie (a missing friend, an animal in the room, something with Stu's face and the list goes on), it is hard to blame the characters complaining that they "can't believe this happening again" way too many times. And yet, while a pale imitation of its predecessor, there are certainly some funny moments to be had with lots of outlandish surprise revelations and charismatic new supporting characters like Nick Cassavetes as a blunt tattoo artist and the ever-reliable Paul Giamatti, in addition to several of Part One's more memorable characters making appearances. The film might not have much new to offer in the marriage and/or relationship message department, but for a few laughs, it is hard to go wrong with the lead actors here, recycled as the basic story may well be.
View MoreThe Hangover gang are back. This time, Stu is getting married in Thailand and the whole gang are invited. After a night on the beach, they wake up to find themselves in a hotel room in Bangkok. It's like deja vu all over again...I enjoyed The Hangover and this is pretty much a copy-and-paste of it. Different location, but very similar plot (and, obviously, the same characters). Interesting at times, but mostly fairly predictable and mundane.Good performances by Brad Cooper and Ed Helms. Found Zach Galifianakis' character very irritating - certainly didn't help my impression of the movie...
View MoreTodd Phillips' approach to part two of his surprise comedy smash The Hangover (2009) is that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The original made bona fide stars out of its lead trio and grossed half a billion dollars in the process, so a sequel was always going to be on the cards. The simple formula of the hapless heroes waking up from a stag night of drink, drugs and debauchery to find the groom missing and a variety of clues lying around to help them work out just what the hell happened felt fresh, and the natural charisma of its stars, particularly Zach Galifianakis, made for a hilarious experience.By sticking to the formula, Phillips has forced himself to a corner where the details have to bigger and more outlandish. Instead of Vegas, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Galifianakis) are in Thailand to celebrate Stu's upcoming wedding to Lauren (Jamie Chung). After a planned quiet night on the beach with a beer and marshmallows, they wake up in a grimy hotel room in Bangkok with no memory of the night before and inexplicably in the presence of gangster Mr. Chow (Ken Jeung) from the first film. When Chow seemingly overdoses on cocaine, they are left to piece things together themselves.If this was a stand-alone movie without the existence of its predecessor, then this probably would have been a winner. While its frequently goes overboard with the crass humour, its consistently amusing without succeeding in being quite so laugh-out-loud as the first movie, thanks mainly again to Galifianakis, whose man-child Alan is the funniest aspect of the film. Yet while his naivety and plain stupidity was so endearing in the original, the sequel also takes Alan to increasingly dark places. Here, he is not so much social inept but dangerously insane to the point that he becomes occasionally outright unlikeable.And this is the main issue - replacing charm and goofiness with extreme humour. Stu was missing a tooth in the first film, but this time he wakes up with a Mike Tyson tribal tattoo on his face. Rather than Tyson's tiger, we have a chain-smoking drug-mule monkey. Rather than finding Doug (Justin Bartha) vanished, they lose Lauren's prodigal younger brother Teddy (Mason Lee), to which the only clue to his participation is his severed finger. And having previously married a stripper, Stu discovers that - in the most uncomfortably unfunny scene - he has been sodomised by a ladyboy. Add to the mix a sub-plot involving gangster Kingsley (Paul Giamatti) and his search for Chow, the film spends too much time away from the hapless threesome's interplay in favour of watching their reactions to a variety of cruel situations.
View More