Director Todd Phillips was at the forefront of this past decade's trend of the grown-men-acting-like-sophomore-boys film when, in 2003, he tapped Will Ferrell and company to make "Old School." To some degree, the problem that plagues his latest, THE HANGOVER, is the fact that this genre has been so beaten down in the past few years that it's hard to do anything fresh with it.
If you are entertained by grown men swearing a lot and having random and inexplicable things happen to them, you'll likely love THE HANGOVER. I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh gymnastically at a good half dozen scenes in the film. And yet the entire time, I kept thinking to myself that this was just "Superbad" with guys who were 20 years older. In both cases, the entire film serves, in a sense, as one continuous trajectory gag. The boys of "Superbad" want to attend a rocking party where they feel they can lose their virginity. The boy-men of THE HANGOVER want to go to Vegas for a batchelor party and have the time of their lives.
There are things about THE HANGOVER that work very well. Most successfully, the plot calls for a loss of memory that we've not seen on film at this scale since "Memento." It's a simple plot construct that makes the film more interesting; we begin toward the end of the story and, like the characters, are exposed to random oddities that no one can explain. Why is there a baby in the hotel suite? Why is there a tiger? How did one of the groomsmen marry a stripper? What happens in Vegas, as they say. But in this case, the guys have no choice. None of them remember themselves! Oh, and the groom is missing.
The core cast of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha are great as the wayward partiers, and clever surprise cameos and small character roles make the film funny straight through the closing credits (literally).
And yet while this film was certainly very funny, I think the clever nature of the story's construct, which has the audience coming to understand what has been happening just as the guys figure it out, is about the only thing that's fresh here. Virtually everything else feels used, borrowed or stolen! The wedding singer who performs inappropriate songs? See "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." The geek who gets the girl? See a dozen other movies. And it's hard not to watch THE HANGOVER without feeling that more than just a few moments were stolen from "Harold and Kumar," among other substance-altered, road-tripping buddies.
In the end, I have to admit to being more than just a little enterained by THE HANGOVER. I am grounded enough, however, to see how derivitave it is. Funny, solid, average. Good, but not great.
3.0 out of 4
If you are entertained by grown men swearing a lot and having random and inexplicable things happen to them, you'll likely love THE HANGOVER. I'd be lying if I said I didn't laugh gymnastically at a good half dozen scenes in the film. And yet the entire time, I kept thinking to myself that this was just "Superbad" with guys who were 20 years older. In both cases, the entire film serves, in a sense, as one continuous trajectory gag. The boys of "Superbad" want to attend a rocking party where they feel they can lose their virginity. The boy-men of THE HANGOVER want to go to Vegas for a batchelor party and have the time of their lives.
There are things about THE HANGOVER that work very well. Most successfully, the plot calls for a loss of memory that we've not seen on film at this scale since "Memento." It's a simple plot construct that makes the film more interesting; we begin toward the end of the story and, like the characters, are exposed to random oddities that no one can explain. Why is there a baby in the hotel suite? Why is there a tiger? How did one of the groomsmen marry a stripper? What happens in Vegas, as they say. But in this case, the guys have no choice. None of them remember themselves! Oh, and the groom is missing.
The core cast of Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis and Justin Bartha are great as the wayward partiers, and clever surprise cameos and small character roles make the film funny straight through the closing credits (literally).
And yet while this film was certainly very funny, I think the clever nature of the story's construct, which has the audience coming to understand what has been happening just as the guys figure it out, is about the only thing that's fresh here. Virtually everything else feels used, borrowed or stolen! The wedding singer who performs inappropriate songs? See "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." The geek who gets the girl? See a dozen other movies. And it's hard not to watch THE HANGOVER without feeling that more than just a few moments were stolen from "Harold and Kumar," among other substance-altered, road-tripping buddies.
In the end, I have to admit to being more than just a little enterained by THE HANGOVER. I am grounded enough, however, to see how derivitave it is. Funny, solid, average. Good, but not great.
3.0 out of 4
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