The Hangover Part III, 2013.
Directed by Todd Phillips.
Starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, and John Goodman.
SYNOPSIS:
When one of their own is kidnapped by an angry gangster, the Wolf Pack must track down Mr. Chow, who has escaped from prison and is on the lam.
In 2009, The Hangover was released to surprising critical praise and became one of the highest grossest comedies of all time. 2011 saw a sequel to the hit comedy that was met with less than stellar reviews but still saw huge success at the box office. With the third and supposedly final entry in the franchise director Todd Phillips and company decided that taking a different route with the story was the way to go.
The Hangover Part III sees Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Doug (Justin Barth) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) get into another crazy situation thanks to Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong). Chow has escaped from a high security prison and is now out on the lam which doesn’t make high powered gangster Marshall (John Goodman) happy at all because Chow stole a lot of money from him. Marshall finds the Hangover gang and makes them go after Chow or else he will kill Doug who he has taken hostage. Now the boys have to bring Chow to Marshall to save Doug’s life.
The initial premise to The Hangover Part III, I actually thought was somewhat interesting. Events that take place in the previous films lead up to what goes on in this third film, and I love it when franchises do things like that. I even give the filmmakers a little credit for doing something different and not doing the same hangover story arc that we saw in the first two films. Sadly the story here mostly revolves around Mr. Chow, a character who should not be one of the main parts of the film. How everything is set up, the story feels more like an action thriller rather than a raunchy comedy.
It was nice to see a few characters return from the first film like Black Doug (Mike Epps) and Jade (Heather Graham) and even new characters Marshall (John Goodman) and Cassie (Melissa McCarthy) had their moments here and there. The main cast works well together once again and they all give fairly decent performances. Zach Galifianakis once again gets the majority of the few laughs to be had however his character this time around has been degraded to that of a child. He comes off as annoying a lot of the time despite providing a few funny moments. The writing here is some of the worst in the series which certainly explains the weak story line. Ultimately, this felt like a cash grab just like the second one was.
Ultimately, The Hangover Part III is another reason why Todd Phillips and crew should have only made one Hangover film. Despite the cast working well together there are almost no laughs to be had and a very weak story keeps this from being hardly entertaining.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Jake Peffer
Originally published December 2, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
