Ephemeris of the Mind (Film Review) The Hangover Part III
Time to read: 2 min read
Movie Poster
Nothing worse than losing your phone.
You just saw a man get murdered. Your brother-in-law is kidnapped. You sure there's nothing worse?
Past Hangover film reviews:
Review
The conclusion to the trilogy that started with one of the more original modern comedy films fizzles out like a deflated balloon at the end of a party. There are no hangovers this time around; Doug (Justin Bartha) is kidnapped by an angry gangster, leaving Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) to find Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong), who has escaped from Thai prison.
Bad giraffe CGI aside, the film feels directionless and the story feels pointless. The adventure is still wild and full of debaucherous excitement but the core premise of the film, that of friends partying too hard and suffering the consequences, no longer applies. Phillips takes this film down a new path, that of an action-adventure comedy. Any nuance from the previous films is stripped away, and instead it feels almost as if the film is desperate to make the audience laugh, often resorting to childish slapstick humour. I found Galifianakis’ Alan to be annoying in the last film and with even more screen time and more focus in Part III; Alan’s overly-exaggerated character is almost completely unfunny. Ken Jeong’s flamboyant Mr. Chow is hilarious, but as with Galifianakis’ Alan, too much screen time made his character much less potent. There are some pretty cool scenes with interesting cinematography, especially the scene in Caesars Palace, but overall the film felt generic.
Conclusion
They should've stopped at Part II.