Lightning doesn’t strike twice for Hangover II

Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover Part II

Have you ever gone on vacation somewhere and had the best time ever? You got to relax, forget all about work and do something fun for a change. In fact, it was so fun that you vowed to go back, but when you returned the next year, it was nowhere near as fun as the first time around. Yeah, that’s pretty much The Hangover Part II.

The Wolfpack is back, drinking, blacking out and getting into all sorts of trouble–only this time it’s in Thailand. It seems that the basic theory with everything in this sequel is that it should be bigger and more insane than the first movie.

This time, it’s mild-mannered Stu (Ed Helms) who’s getting married to a lovely girl with strict parents who hate him, despite his good nature. His friends Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Doug (Justin Bartha) will join him in Thailand for the wedding. After some convincing, he reluctantly invites Alan (Zach Galifianakis), the founding member of the Wolfpack who accidentally roofied him just a couple years prior. The guys are joined by Teddy (Mason Lee), the bride’s brother and an overachieving Stanford student. This time, it’s Teddy, not Doug, who goes missing after the wild night, leading the gang to unravel clues to find their friend and not ruin the wedding. Of course, you couldn’t revisit The Hangover without Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) and Mike Tyson, so they’re inexplicably in it too.

Because it’s set in Thailand, the situations have gone beyond regular ridiculous to totally nuts. Remember the tiger in the bathroom? Well, swap that for a monkey. How about Mr. Chow and the gang of bad ass Asian dudes after the guys in the first movie? Well now it’s Paul Giamatti and another gang of thugs. Remember when Stu incoherently hooked up with a stripper/escort (Heather Graham) in the first one? Now the stripper/escort is a Thai ladyboy (pornstar Yasmin Lee). Everything is amped up, or as George Lucas would say, “faster and more intense!”

It’s not like the movie isn’t funny. There are definitely some laughs, but it feels like any other comedy, not like the instant-classic original Hangover. All the jokes seem forced and it’s clear that this movie was more of a business decision than a legitimate comedic effort.