Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, and Ed Helms (Warner Brothers Entertainment/Legendary Pictures)There’s a curious bit of product placement in the middle of The Hangover Part III, the latest and hopefully final chapter of the comedy franchise. Right after somebody utters the words, “fatal dose,” Stu (Ed Helms) takes a sip from an Arby’s cup. The purveyors of delicious beef and cheddar sandwiches are invoked at the suggestion of mortality. In this third installment of the comedy series devoted to blackout lapses of memory, there is no titular morning after, and there are more drunken binges in any given episode of Mad Men. But people and animals die.
The movie opens with ominous Orff-esque music over what could be a less inventive outtake from The Raid: Redemption. In a Bangkok jail, prison guards follow the sounds of a full-fledged riot. They come upon the empty cell of Mr. Chow (Dr. Ken Jeong) to find an iconic “Hang in There, Baby” poster masking the escape route that led Chow to freedom. It’s the only time I laughed during the entire movie.
Sensitive viewers will want to pet a kitten to escape what follows. The movie sets up its gags with an adorable pussycat pinup. But we only see this animal in a photograph that captures but a moment of kitten lifespan. In fact, the vintage inspirational poster may be encouraging humans to hang in there with a kitten that is in fact no longer hanging in there at all. IT MAY ALREADY BE DEAD. This cuddly affirmation is a dark harbinger of the animal cruelty that awaits the viewer.
If you’ve seen the trailer, you already know the setup for the initial carnage. The man-child Alan (Zach Galafianakis) tools down the highway, hauling a trailer with a newly purchased giraffe, “MmmBop” playing on the stereo. Naturally, the impulsive Alan ignores height warnings and his decapitated pet (castration anxiety, much?) sets off a multi-car accident. The movie plays this for laughs not once but twice, as in a later scene, douchey Phil (Bradley Cooper) tells his buddies that the giraffe thing was pretty funny, wasn’t it. The audience is invited to approve, and I wish I could say the sounds of crickets sang in the aisles.
Ken Jeong (Warner Brothers Entertainment/Legendary Pictures)The bulk of the plot is devoted to a scheme where the brahs attempt to kidnap Mr. Chow, who stole millions of dollars in gold bars from Marshall (John Goodman). Chow follows Alan’s cruel lead on a smaller but more deliberate scale, suffocating a rooster and snapping the necks of guard dogs, not long after crawling around on the floor like one, because Asians are evil and subservient. Ken Jeong was an established medical doctor before he took to standup comedy and you wonder when he crossed to the dark side, working against the Hippocratic Oath that vows to “abstain from doing harm.” Asians are BAD, America.
For all its offensiveness, Todd Phillips’ movie is not the worst I’ve seen this year—right now that distinction would go to Dead Man Down or G.I. Joe: Doing Something Supposedly Exciting.
Actually, you know what? Hangover III has action sequences that are more coherent than many I’ve seen in this year’s actual action movies. Fans of the first two Hangovers may feel particularly betrayed by its abandonment of the series’ core values. I did not see the first two films, so I do not really care. The film perhaps stays most true to its namesake when I realize I have already forgotten much of it just days after seeing it.
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Directed by Todd Phillips
Written by Todd Phillips and Craig Mazin, based on characters by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
With Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, John Goodman
Rated R for pervasive language including sexual references, some violence and drug content, brief graphic nudity, and existential despair
