The Hangover Part II (2011)

Elevator Pitch: The friends from Hangover are attending the wedding of Stu on resort island in Thailand and meet, after the rehearsal, for a beer on the beach. They wake up in a grubby hotel room in Bangkok with a monkey and their old criminal associate from Las Vegas, but without the bride’s young brother apart from his finger. In their search for the young man they retrace their path through the night spots of the city reliving the resulting mayhem, but the clock is ticking and it seems less and less likely that they will make it back for the wedding.

Content: There is a lot of semi-nudity including a person with boobs and balls, plus night time activities in the city – visits to what looked like the same strip club as in Bangkok Dangerous. The hotel is very grim. The monkey delivers drugs. There is a car chase and the guys are shot at. They get a monk out of a police station and visit his monastery. There are also visits to very luxurious Thai environments including a rooftop restaurant and the wedding resort.

A View: Lets start with the numbers. It covered its production costs on its first weekend and eventually was to make over half a billion dollars. But it was poorly reviewed and was nominated for and won a number of negative awards including “Sequel or Remake That Shouldn’t Have Been Made” by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists and a nomination for “Most Overrated Movie of the Year”. I have tried to understand my own view, in relation to other stuff that I have not been so negative about and I think it is the fact that this is supposed to be a comedy, but it is anything but. There are no laughs but a lot of unpleasantness – so it is in my “DON’T SEE” category.

Additional info: The monkey, Crystal, has starred in a number of other movies and shows including Night in the Museum and Big Bang.