Synopsis: Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) travel to exotic Thailand for Stu’s wedding. What could go wrong? Director Todd Phillips’ explosively funny follow-up to his award-winning smash hit demonstrates that though what happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, what happens in Bangkok can hardly be imagined!
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The Hangover Part II 7.0

WARNING: ‘The Hangover’ is a spoiler for ‘The Hangover Part II’. And vice-versa.

And, by this I mean that ‘The Hangover Part II’ is exactly like ‘The Hangover’!

I had read this countless times in various comments, but I didn’t realize that they were being quite literal about it. I honestly thought that they meant that both films were extremely similar.

Not so. ‘The Hangover Part II’ is very much the same movie, but with some -and only some– of its elements shifted about.

Some key substitutions are:

• It takes place in luscious Bangkok instead of glitzy Las Vegas
• They find a monkey instead of a baby
• Teddy disappears instead of Doug

But that’s pretty much it. Everything else is the same, or virtually, in even the slightest details.

Case-in-point:

• It starts with a Danzig song… again (and it has a Wolfmother song in it too!).
• Stu sings a silly song… again (and at about the same point in the film!).
• There’s a kidnapping plot… again (and it’s also a mix-up!).

Sigh… even the ending is pretty much the same as in the original: “Omg, look at all this photographic evidence of our night out! Let’s look at it once and then delete it forever!”

Unbelievable! I’m utterly stunned. I wonder what they were thinking when they concocted the plan to play this trick on their audiences: was it a cynical ploy to make more money, were they simply giving more of what audiences liked, or was this a personal joke by the filmmakers? I really wish I knew.

Having said this, unlike most, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the film is terrible. Not at all. In fact, it’s so similar to the original that, by knocking ‘The Hangover Part II’, one invariably knocks ‘The Hangover’. ‘Part II’ is actually a very solid movie, for what it is (albeit a slightly less funny one than the first instalment).

However, one should only watch one of the two. And all comes down to one simple choice: Vegas or Bangkok?