(Movie Review) The Hangover Part III (2013)

Hangover 3 is miles better than 2 but still can’t touch the original 

The Hangover was a sleeper hit that ended up destroying the box office by sheer awesome force alone. R-Rated comedies are not normally that successful. So obviously the plan had to be to rush a sequel to market. So the film company basically remade the movie in a new setting. Same plot, same characters and the same twists…and people lapped it up. The problem was that people quickly learned that they were basically duped into paying twice to see the same movie. So The Hangover III had to be careful. Audiences were already weary after being let down by The Hangover II, and the last thing the film makers wanted to do was ruin their franchise. While The Hangover III is MILES better than The Hangover II, since this movie actually gives us an original story, it is still nowhere near the quality of the original. 

Storyline: Alan (Galifianakis) has been off of his medication for a while now and it has caused so much stress to his family that his father has a heart attack and dies. The Wolfpack comes together, at the request of Alan’s mother, to convince Alan to check into a mental rehabilitation clinic. While transporting Alan to the clinic a gangster runs them off the road, kidnaps Doug (Bartha), and threatens to kill him unless they can bring him the elusive Mr. Chow (Jeong). Their search ends in the one place that they swore they would never return….Las Vegas. 

As you can tell from the above description there is still one element from the other films that makes it into this one. Doug is, yet again, missing from the majority of the movie. I mean, why did they even cast this guy in the movies. The poor fella ends up missing in every single movie. Still, that is really the only part of the first two films that carries over. There is no “hangover” (at least not until the credits) and there are no roofies that force the group to piece together the events of the previous night. There is only the search for Mr. Chow and the attempt to save their friends life.

Worth the admission? Sure. As you can tell, I’m not “over the moon” excited about the film, but it was a pleasant enough comedy. There are some extremely funny moments in it and the special scene at the end (during the credits) is hysterical. I cried I was laughing so hard at it. But other than that the film is just an average comedy. It’s worth the admission, but not by much. 

What would have been GREAT is if this film would have been the 2^nd and The Hangover II would have been the 3^rd. I think that the franchise, overall, would have worked much better that way. Still, it’s been a fun ride with Alan, Stu, Phil, Doug, Black Doug and Mr. Chow. Now if only Mike Tyson can get a spin off…