True. But barely.

This makes the sequel look like an absolute masterpiece. Whoever thought it was a good idea to expand Ken Jeong's role is a psychopath - he gives what is easily the most irritating performance of the year so far. The film itself just feels lifeless - Bradley Cooper seems completely unengaged and the rest of the cast is kind of going through the motions at this point. Melissa McCarthy was a highlight in her limited screentime. Also, I didn't laugh once. The movie can barely be classified as a comedy, but when it does try to be funny all the jokes fall flat.

This is going to have bad WOM for sure. Everyone in my audience was talking about how bad it was as they were leaving.

Also, the giraffe gag at the beginning is atrocious and the special effects are terrible. As are the green screen effects in the climax around Caeser's Palace. For a movie that cost over 100 Million, that's unacceptable. C-/D+

Well I actually agree with David for the most part (though I didn't love it as much as he did). I thought it was quite fun and the way they changed things up was nice. I thought the first two were fine, but the first was actually quite overrated. This one is about on the same wave length, just a tad better. Nothing spectacular, but a fun movie to see with an audience. I thought the laughs scored more than missed. People are being way too hard on it.

My sold out audience (it was only in a 69 seat theater, but still) was laughing throughout and had mostly positive things to say about it.

7/10

Didn't think it was that bad? Maybe it was the quick glance of this thread that lowered my expectations substantially, but it really wasn't THAT bad and actually pretty funny at times. The story being focused on Chow was definitely a bad move, but overall I liked the change of pace and much prefer this to another crazy-night-gone-wrong incident. The biggest problem here was that Alan was overly ridiculous at times, even for Alan, which made a lot of the jokes so forced. But there's still some funny moments throughout and it's passable entertainment.

Obviously the charm and hilariousness of the first film was lost when the second one came out, but this isn't "F"-territory.

I really enjoyed it. It's definitely an improvement over the last one. The change in formula was the smartest movie Mazin and Phillips could've made. And either I'm getting used to "dark" movies and this just rolled off me or I just didn't see what was so "dark". I'm completely baffled as to why anyone would consider this one "dark" (though David's post is very intriguing even if I think he takes it a little too far). I'm not sure what I was expecting after reading the reviews in this thread, but I didn't get "dark". This is tonally right in line with the other films except three people get shot. If you want to say it was unfunny that's more than fair, but that doesn't mean the film is "dark".



(B+)

It's not Shakespeare or anything but as a fun, entertaining summer popcorn comedy, I thought it did its job quite well.

This film and Chow's character are worth it alone for the scene of them trying disarming the alarm and Chow acting like a dog. That might be the series highlight from me and Helms' acting was hilarious.

Up there with the Fat Kid taser part of the first film, and the transvestite revealing story in the 2nd film.

Glenn Coco? FOUR FOR YOU GLEN COCO! YOU GO GLEN COCO! And none for Magnus, bye.

Of course it was lol But I was only kidding, get the knot out of your panties bro.

Good grief. Where to begin with The Hangover: Part III? It's not that the movie is bad. It's not that it's unfunny. It's not that it's unnecessary. Oh no. Hell no. This thing is on another level entirely. Remember how the chief complaint surrounding Part II was that it was practically a carbon copy of the first film, but significantly less effective with its humor? Part III takes the proceedings in a completely different direction, but it's a direction that is so unfunny and so nihilistic that it feels as if the film is very deliberately trolling the viewers who panned the first sequel for being too much like the original film. After one good laugh in the first five minutes (namely, the giraffe scene, which actually does a bang-up job of illustrating Alan's childishness and complete obliviousness to the trouble he causes), the film sputters and never recovers. But I never got the sense that anyone involved really wanted it to recover, as there's no momentum between jokes, none of the comedic energy that even Part II had in abundance, and none of the chemistry between the three leads that made the first film work as well as it did. While Zack Galifianakis at least appears to be trying to milk Alan's bizarre behavior for all it's worth, Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms seem entirely disinterested, as if they can't wait to cash their respective checks and move on with whatever better projects await them. The film also tries to integrate elements of capers and thrillers, but they fall flat because they don't feel at all organic to the universe the filmmakers have created; and if it's trying to act as a satire of those genres, it doesn't work because the approach is neither clever nor insightful. (That said, there are two sequences that are stylish enough that I'd like to see Todd Phillips have a bigger, more sincere go at an action-comedy; those sequences are the prison escape prologue and the strobe light scene.) By the end of the whole joyless affair, there's so little humor, so many attempts to make the film dark that misfire, and such a strong sense of angry cynicism the film seems to have about its very existence that I couldn't decide whether to outright loathe it, or have some slight appreciation for the fact that I couldn't help but shake the feeling that it felt like the filmmakers were spending 100 minutes giving their audience a big, fat, dirty middle finger. It's rare to see a movie that seems to hate itself and its audience, but The Hangover: Part III makes that dubious achievement.

D

What a pussy. The bile drenched hatred at the heart of this film is perfect.

I must say, I'm enjoying Webslinger's reviews recently just as much as David's, which is a coincidence as he was also once a fellow 'slinger.

See, I was actually looking forward to seeing the movie after hearing about how dark it was. If nothing else, it's a different direction than the first sequel went in, and on paper, it's a ballsy move for a sequel to two hit comedies to take a bleaker approach to its humor. The problem is that it just doesn't work. The humor doesn't click, the main points being made about the characters' lack of responsibility for their actions prior to the intervention are obvious if one spends just a few minutes thinking about the implications of the first two films, and the commentary the film appears to be making about itself isn't particularly sharp.

How is it their fault, when all seem to have pretty uneventful lives? It was Allen both times that caused all of the problems of the first two films. What responsibility would they need to take. That's like saying a girl gets roofied, and it's her fault for getting gang-raped.

You liked the giraffe scene but didn't laugh at chow smothering a chicken? I thought that was one of the more bizarrely funny moments in the film. And I also think Cooper and Helms were much better acting wise in this film, where as the first was a just cash grab. Phil calling Stu a doctor for instance is a very great moment in the series. It's the first moment probably in all of the films (Including them trying to help Alan, Alan with Carlos) or actually caring about one another that I would actually classify as acting in this series.

Obviously, it's not the other characters' fault for getting drugged. But it's abundantly clear that there's something wrong with Alan, and that he needs some major psychological help lest he risk doing more damage to himself or others, and there's no hint that the other characters realize that point in a serious manner until the beginning of the third movie. While they're not exactly enabling him, they're also not doing anything to stop him, even though they've experienced firsthand (TWICE) the magnitude of trouble he can get himself and others into without grasping what he's doing or why it's dangerous.

The giraffe scene is clever because of what it says about Alan. Everything in the scene - "Mmmbop" playing on the radio, Alan nonchalantly drinking a beer behind the wheel, a giraffe that has no chance whatsoever of surviving a low clearing, and his relatively unconcerned reaction to the huge scene behind his car after the giraffe's death - serves to show just what little understanding Alan has of the trouble he causes. There's a point to the joke that's more clever than anything else the film does. It has good setup and good execution. The chicken scene has barely any setup, and the punchline about feeding them cocaine and chicken isn't that funny.

I think the characters cared about one another elsewhere in the series, albeit in subtle ways that served the story. They had a stronger rapport with one another in the previous films, and there was a sense that they really were close friends (with the exception of Alan, of course). Here, it feels like there's considerably more distance between them, as if the actors and/or the writers and director aren't putting as much effort into developing the relationship between these characters. I get that these circumstances have left the characters exhausted and that they want to be out of the mess as soon as possible, but those traits were true of the first two movies as well.

Here's my thoughts on that:

1. Phil and especially Stu want nothing to do with Alan after the first film. It's implied almost the entire film. If you really think about this logistically, they know Alan from those two days. Would they honestly go out of their way to help a stranger, and they made a pact that they would never discuss the events of that day, no matter what. Besides Stu spends most of the second film blaming Alan, telling him what a fuck up he is and how they want nothing to do with him.

2. The Alan of the first film is so completely different character of the Alan of the 2nd film. The first film he is much more naive like a child, but he likes to party, and doesn't care if other people don't like his jokes. His sociopathic tendencies all basically happened in between the first and 2nd film, when we know he had no contact with the rest of the group, except probably Doug. This is my biggest flaw of the 2nd and third film is that Alan is just way too over the top in these films. If he was more grounded like in the first film, both films would have played better.

Then again, we're arguing the characters motivations of the Hangover Franchise. There is basically no acting in these films, it's all reacting. I'd argue there is no real reason that the main three guys are friends to begin with, Doug looks to be a cross between the uptightness of Stu and the more carefree attitude of Phil, but even none of that is explored. Chemistry between the actors is what was important, not the actual characters.

I like this convo, keep going!

Yup. That means it's probably time to find something better to do.

Also, given the room for actor allusion, was anyone else waiting for someone to correct John Goodman's use of the term "chinaman?"

Yeah this was really, really bad. Worst of the three. It's just the characters of Chow and Alan are so badly written that their characters becoming annoying merely seconds after they are on screen. Though I appreciated the change in structure, they didn't approach the change in the right way. Barely any laughs either and not enough John Goodman.

Also, that last scene of the four walking does nothing positive and was actually frustrating because Phillips decides to acknowledge Doug at the very end yet didn't bother throughout the rest of the series.

The credits scene was also horrifically awful.

I HAVE BOOBIES!

I was stunned at how disinterested the film seemed in itself. At least Part II- though it isn't good by any stretch- tried to be crazy. This movie's just boring and lazy. They might as well have started it at the end credits and done the formula again.

It wasn't that bad, but it's not very good either. I didn't laugh as much as I wanted, but I at least appreciate that they went in a different direction.

I would say it's the worst of the three, but I still didn't hate it. Also, I thought the credits scene was pretty hilarious.

More of the movie should have been that funny.

Somewhat agree. It looked like the end credits would have been a pretty funny film.

The third movie lost the chemistry the first two had. Being boring and lazy compounded its problems. 5/10 (C-)

That's pretty much what I did. His ass looked nice in those khakis .

I'm glad this is the last "Hangover" movie. It has a few small laughs but it's mostly just not very good. The funniest scenes were the two with Melissa McCarthy.

5/10 ( C )