Very Bad Trip 3

The Hangover Part III Review

The truth is that Part III of this decent trilogy was pretty good, but not great, and definitely not awesome. I too was lured to the cinemas, due to the fact that there was a lot of controversy (and of course, a lot of advertising) to see if that film was good or not.

The cast was pretty good, with Zach Galifianakis returning -of course- and giving a great performance as the funny and weird character of Alan, who is actually why a lot of people went to the cinemas for.

The story advanced pretty well, with no actual "Hangover" this time, but with a bunch of nice story twisters and clever lines.

Unfortunately, the film didn't have the charm of the first film, the film that introduced us the great company of the "Wolf Pack" but I believe it was better than the second film, because the story progressed better, and the actors were more direct and lovable.

6.5/10

Zach Galifianakis is now super annoying. When this started, we were laughing at him but his shtick is now tiring. They needed to downgrade his antics from mean-hearted to just simple stupidity. I know Todd Phillips is saving it for Alan to grow in this movie. But it started to happen too late.

Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms seem to be going thru the motions. We miss the face tattoo. They needed to do something to replace it.

Ken Jeong is actually doing something serious. In the first two, he was lovable bad guy. From the first moment as the naked guy in the car truck, we thought he couldn't do much damage. But in this one, he is causing real damage to the group.

John Goodman is doing a new character Marshall. He's a new bad guy looking to get Mr Chow for stealing his gold. So he kidnaps Doug to force the group to catch Mr Chow for him. It's rather serious, and not that funny.

It was good to see that Alan finally grow up, and dealt with Mr Chow.

More often than not people end up learning the hard way that it's usually better to leave a good thing well enough alone, which might be a lesson truly lived in regards to the quality of what can be deemed as The Hangover trilogy. When the exceptionally lazy Hangover Pt. II was released two years ago it highlighted the immense limitations of director Todd Phillips' storytelling capabilities as it traveled a carbon copy of the first film's intoxicated mystery and amplified vulgarity to different scenery but forgot to bring the laughs along for the trip. Now it seems the Todd Phillips created Hangover trilogy has taken to unintentionally embodying the stages of an actual hangover with the first installment's introduction serving as the party, the dirtier and lazier sequel acting as an unconscious blacked out sleep, and the newest final part becoming a nauseous, unbearable aftermath. The Hangover Pt. III: The End promises the conclusion of what could have been a respectable "adultolescence" comedy franchise and after experiencing the third installments descent into darkness and bitterness let's hope it's a promise that is inevitably kept. Todd Phillips and co-screenwriter Craig Mazin (Identity Thief, Scary Movie 3) have tossed aside all sense of wit, surprise, and genuine humor this time around replacing those qualities evident in the first Hangover with sociopathic cruelty, foreseeable plot changes, and zero sense of amusement diminishing any admirable attempt to change up the plot formula. All the fondness audiences have gained towards the characters of Alan (Zach Galifianakis), Phil (Bradley Cooper), and Stu (Ed Helms) will be tainted in this final chapter as a mixture of performance idleness, poor script follow through, and a lens focusing on their purely sober qualities makes these three characters less than sympathetic, even bordering on incredibly unlikeable. What's ironic is that Todd Phillips has gone out of his way to appease the vilest of criticisms towards his uncreative writing and yet ends up highlighting his true creative limitations by not being able to drift away from a familiar structure. Unfortunately for fans of the series and audience members hoping for a strong summer comedy The Hangover Pt. III: The End ends this less than comedic trilogy with a desperate whimper and through its mean-spiritedness becomes a barely recognizable thread to the humorous and delightfully ill-mannered film that started it all.

Not so long ago in the year 2009, The Hangover exploded onto the scene and was praised as one of the funniest films of the decade, with its witty cast and the hilarious "re-tracing our footsteps to find out what we did" routine running as the main plot. The Hangover Part II simply changed nothing at all, and offered nothing new with the attitude of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." What will please fan's the most with The Hangover Part III, is that is does not follow the same formula that the first two did. However, a lot of fan's will be headed into disappointment when they realize that this third instalment decides to take a completely different change in direction than that of its predecessors. And by completely, I mean very much drastically.

The story follows the Wolf Pack yet again as they try to help Alan (Zach Galifianakis) get back on track due to him being off his meds, and soon enough they get thrown into a Mission Impossible-esque mission to save their friend Doug (Justin Bartha, who yet again takes a miss on all the excitement) from Marshall (John Goodman), an angry gangster who wants' the Wolf Pack to find Chow (Ken Jeong, who has a much larger screen time in this instalment) and return to him to them with 21 million dollars in gold bricks that he stole. If not, Doug gets the offing.

A major plot point is the development of Alan. His friends Phil and Stu (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms) are mature and grown men who have happily settled down, but he is still very much stuck as a spoilt rotten teenager within a man's body, and his life is going nowhere. Throughout the adventure, it really is a tale about Alan and watching him grow into the man he should have become years ago. Fans of The Hangover owe it to themselves to watch it, whatever their final opinion of it may be.

Whereas The Hangover Part III doesn't match the quality of its first part, it definitely doesn't deserve all the negativity it has been getting. The film does a good job of balancing the well known Hangover humour with the Mission Impossible-esque set pieces, and all the recurring stars do well reprising their roles. One of the biggest changes that The Hangover Part III entails is that there is no actual drinking/hangover sequence. There's also no wedding or no missing person (or a pot smoking monkey). Instead, it plays it much straighter and it knows what it wants to set out to do, which is to stray far away from the formula of the first two chapters. And by doing so, it makes the finale to The Hangover Trilogy one to remember.

My Verdict: The Hangover Part III is a fitting end to the trilogy, but despite its changes in directions fans will be divided, resulting in a love or hate for this final chapter.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie!! While it was not as good as the first, It still was a very funny and enjoyable movie! If you Like the hangover series, you will like this film. Zach Galafinakis once again stole the show, and MR CHOW was also brilliant. Again I do not know why there are so many negative reviews. Of course this is no Oscar winner, but it was still a great comedy movie in my opinion. I enjoyed it a lot, and have watched it several times since first seeing it! Do not listen to all of these negative reviews, go and watch it! I have come on IMDb so many times to check a movie and see all then negative reviews, and almost pass on watching a movie. Don't let this happen with hangovver 3! Excellent film. 8/10