I’ve just finished watching The Hangover Part III. The last part in the trilogy of easily the most over rated moment of history since Hitler’s Sauna House opened in the 1940’s. If you thought the first two were fantastic then you may be disappointed with this one, as they have seriously dialed back everything about the film that made it iconic. If you thought they were terrible, really really terrible, you’ll also be disappointed because it isn’t even worth getting annoyed about. It’s just very plainly boring. It is beyond clear that the motivation for making this film had nothing to do with plot resolution or the love for making films and was more than likely, a cash-grab. Straight off the bat the film reeks of a higher budget but absolutely no creative flair, or creativity at all.
The film starts 2 years after the end of the last one, with Chow escaping the prison he got banged up in. A slight reference to the Shawshank Redemption is made in what Todd Phillips would try and convince you was very subtle and clever way, but really was about as interesting as walking into a closed brothel and watching someone’s coffee go cold.
Zach Galifianakis, as Alan, is driving up the road with a giraffe in a trailer that he’s just bought. This is to remind us that he is rich and eccentric, though I personally find him so close to genuinely mentally disabled that laughing at anything that he does or says elicits the same feeling I would get watching someone with Cerebral Palsy fall out of a chair. Anyway, he drives under a low bridge and decapitates the giraffe, but you knew that because you saw it in the trailer. When he gets home his dad gets quite frustrated with his constant fuck-up-ary and then promptly dies, and Alan sings at his funeral like a castrato, which is funny to someone apparently. But you knew that because you saw it in the trailer.
Alan agrees, after an intervention, to go to a rehab facility because he’s gone off his meds but only if the “Wolfpack” from the first two films go with him. It’s almost immediately that the film moves from boring into boring again, in a boring way, as John Goodman runs them off the road.
So it turns out Chow has stolen all John Goodman’s lunch money for the week to the tune of about $42,000,000. So he kidnaps the boring one of the four characters so the people you would recognise on the poster are all that’s left. He tells them that they have to go and get his gold or they will execute the other guy. It’s at this point, I’m starting to worry that my review is going to be meta-boring in an all too accurate parody of the film itself. If it had been shit I could have been annoyed at it, or if it had been great I could have praised it with buckets full of shock and incredulity. Anyway.
Warning, this next paragraph is going to make the more immature of you giggle to yourselves.
So they go and find Chow and Todd Phillips finally remembers that it’s supposed to be a comedy film. Alan accidentally unleashes Chow’s Cocks, from his cock fighting cages, which attack everyone in the room wherein absolutely no hilarity ensues. Chow then shoots his Cocks and suffocates the last one, but you know that because you saw it in the trailer.
It’s about this point where the tremendous lack of entertainment will make you start counting roof tiles, or seeing how long you can hold your breath, or trying to see if you can make yourself ejaculate only using your mind, because it’s just terribly dull. As I said before, if it was significantly shitter than it is I could at least rant and rage but I can’t and this makes me sad, it’s made about as much of an impression on me as a Mini Chicken Kiev would leave in the roof of a Ford Fiesta.
I’m not going to patronise you much further as literally every entertaining moment in the film is in the trailer, and within the context of the film they are much less entertaining. Do yourself a favour and go and get your forgetful, elderly relatives to count to 100. It’ll be much more satisfying and a lot less boring.
I’m truly sorry if this reads as boringly as I felt, but I’ve saved you roughly one hundred minutes, and for that you are welcome.
The Hangover Part III gets a 2/5, [★★☆☆☆]
Dave Roberts
The Hangover Part III at CeX
