The Hangover Part III (1 Viewer)

Man, talk about beating a dead horse day after day after day. THE HANGOVER II was a pretty big disappointment since the filmmakers just got lazy and re-did the first film in a new location but it looks like the work of Chaplin compared to PART III. There were about ten people in my screening this morning and there were only four left when the end credits started.

It really does seem like the director and cast didn't want to do this film but either had to because of a contract or perhaps Warner just threw so much money at them. Either way, this here is without question one of the laziest comedies I've seen in a very long time. Yes, it's better than INAPPROPRIATE COMEDY and SCARY MOVIE V but this here is something with talent and it should have been better. It's just shocking that not only is it not funny but there doesn't seem to be any attempt to make it funny. There are very few jokes and most of them deal with someone doing something stupid and then we get a shot at someone else's stupid reaction.

I know some say sequels are evil and are all made when a film makes money. I never really bought into this because if you have something good and fun then it's not too hard to make it again. However, with the previous film and this one, it's clear that this doesn't always work and whatever magic the first film had is something the filmmakers couldn't repeat.

Let us all hope this is the last.

* 1/2 (out of 4)

The second was tough to sit through. This sounds like it's walk-out-worthy, though more than likely I'm going to review the Blu-ray. I'll try to be objective.

Since I found the first one to only be kinda funny (the pictures during the credits are the only laugh outloud moment), I'm probably not the best judge of these movies but I thought the third one was a step up from the second one. Not that this movie is anything that great but I'm surprised by some of the reviews I've seen. I like Ken Jeong so having him be the focus of the movie worked for me and I like that they did something different this time (no mystery of what happened last night for a third time). The movie does run out of gas towards the end though.

Michael Elliott said:

There were about ten people in my screening this morning and there were only four left when the end credits started.

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The crowd I saw it with seemed to be really into it (way more than me). There was laughter all the way up until the last 20 or so minutes where it was alot more sparse and there was no walkouts. People even stuck around for the mid-credits P.S.

There were no walkouts at my screening, but a lot of grumbling. Frankly, it is -NOT- funny. There are maybe two bits that are entertaining.

Last fall, I sat in on a pre-screening for a film that won't be released until later in the summer, and I wrote on my audience participation survey: "One of the worst comedies I've ever seen.. lose a certain joke, it's both not funny and borders on sick." the two people near me said the exact same thing. One walked out with me and said "I've never seen anything that unnecessary for a sequel."

Well, this may top that. I don't know just yet, I'll have to let it sink in.. but if it doesn't top it, it's got to be a tie. This is one of the most unnecessary, brutally unfunny comedies I've seen. It may be better than Movie 43, Inappropriate Comedy, etc.. but not by much, and with those films you knew they were crap before you walked in.

I really enjoyed the first hangover. I thought the second one lost the train of thought (especially since we undid some of the great stuff of one, like the girl he fell for in Vegas, etc.) But Part III? Just stupid.
If it hadn't been for free tickets, I wouldn't have went... and I still pondered if I could get replacement free tickets for the fact I feel I overpaid.


1/2 out of 5.

Hey, MOVIE 43 kicked ass and I'm going to defend it until my dying day. Yes, I'm serious.

It seems like the box office isn't doing as great as most thought. I wonder if this is due to how negative the reaction was to part 2 or if word of mouth has really gotten out already. To be honest, I'm not sure I believe in "word of mouth." Could be it was just a dumb idea to open this with FAST & FURIOUS 6.


Matt, I hope that movie you might not be able to mention wasn't that upcoming Helms-Aniston movie. I saw the red trailer for it before this film and thought it looked pretty funny.

Michael Elliott said:

Hey, MOVIE 43 kicked ass and I'm going to defend it until my dying day. Yes, I'm serious.

It seems like the box office isn't doing as great as most thought. I wonder if this is due to how negative the reaction was to part 2 or if word of mouth has really gotten out already. To be honest, I'm not sure I believe in "word of mouth." Could be it was just a dumb idea to open this with FAST & FURIOUS 6.


Matt, I hope that movie you might not be able to mention wasn't that upcoming Helms-Aniston movie. I saw the red trailer for it before this film and thought it looked pretty funny.

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No. It is an unnamed Kevin James sequel they let us screen an early roll out right before Christmas. It has a joke in it that is so wildly offensive it marked the first and only time I have EVER seen a member in a test audience walk out of a film. Ever. Period.

I like inappropriate humor. To me, the second was better because of the whole stripper scene.

You have to share that joke, Matt. Isn't the screening NDA expired by now?

I might be the only one, but I thought "Hangover III" was moderately enjoyable - not great, but a lot better than others think.

Honestly, I think the series has improved as it's gone. I didn't like much about the first one, and I wasn't wild about the sequel, but I thought it improved on the original.
For me, this one's easily the best of the bunch. It largely dispenses with the cheesy gross-out humor of the first two, and it drops the "hangover" conceit. Yeah, I know that's what made the original clever, but a third movie in which the guys get blotto, do inappropriate things and have to retrace their steps would've been tiresome. I'm glad they went in a different direction.

It really is a fairly substantial departure from the first two - maybe that's why a lot of people dislike it. Like I said, the gross-out humor's gone, and we get a lot more subtle gags. I'll always prefer small jokes over broad ones, so that made "H3" more appealing to me - it provides a lot of comedic asides that don't call attention to themselves, whereas the first two tended to go for "in your face" moments.

I never thought this threatened to become a comedy classic, but it kept me interested and entertained across its 100 minutes. It certainly amused me more than the first two combined!(I continue to feel sorry for Justin Bartha, though. As seen in the "National Treasure" flicks, he has good comedic talent, but he's stuck with a dud role in all three of these movies. He's a plot device, not a character, and the role wastes his skills.)

Aaron Silverman said:

You have to share that joke, Matt. Isn't the screening NDA expired by now?

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The movie itself has to be "Grown Ups 2", since that's the only Kevin James movie coming out this summer...

The main problem with this film is that I was laughing, but laughing at the pathetic-ness of Alan, the man-child, for the most part, not laughing with him and his antics. But the writers did try to shoe-horn in some character development for him, but the damage has been done. So, sure, I did laugh at some bits here and here, but it's just too forced. Chow is too broad a character to take with extended screen-time, but still a few nuggets of laugh from him as well. The rest of the film (and the wolf pack) just exists as a framework to milk this "franchise to an early demise (let's hope).

I give it 1.5 stars, or a grade of D+.

schan1269 said:

I like inappropriate humor. To me, the second was better because of the whole stripper scene.

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I will share the movie when it's released at the theaters.. soon. If the joke is still in there, you will know. The joke goes like this:

About 10 minutes in, people poke fun at a 10 year old boy because of his interest in theater.. (crack a "gay" type joke)
About 40 minutes in, the kid is making up something, I don't know (another crack about his artsy nature)
In the big scene, a ballet at a school, everyone in the theater is agape, including one of the principles pointing to the little boy and saying something to the effect of "holy s--- that kid is packing a GIANT penis!" This goes on for about 3 minutes, as everyone in the theater "gasps" and women have their mouths drop open, etc.

All the time, everyone in the row I was with was thinking: WTF. We have established earlier in the film that the kid is TEN YEARS OLD. It was a joke that was not only bad, but the fact it kept going on, including the father high-fiving another parent over the size of his ten year old's endowment was.. just wrong. I can't think of a joke I've seen in a film I just thought: It's not just crass and bad taste, it's wildly unfunny

mattCR said:

I will share the movie when it's released at the theaters.. soon. If the joke is still in there, you will know. The joke goes like this:

About 10 minutes in, people poke fun at a 10 year old boy because of his interest in theater.. (crack a "gay" type joke)
About 40 minutes in, the kid is making up something, I don't know (another crack about his artsy nature)
In the big scene, a ballet at a school, everyone in the theater is agape, including one of the principles pointing to the little boy and saying something to the effect of "holy s--- that kid is packing a GIANT penis!" This goes on for about 3 minutes, as everyone in the theater "gasps" and women have their mouths drop open, etc.

All the time, everyone in the row I was with was thinking: WTF. We have established earlier in the film that the kid is TEN YEARS OLD. It was a joke that was not only bad, but the fact it kept going on, including the father high-fiving another parent over the size of his ten year old's endowment was.. just wrong. I can't think of a joke I've seen in a film I just thought: It's not just crass and bad taste, it's wildly unfunny

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It was funny on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Oy vey.

mattCR said:

I will share the movie when it's released at the theaters.. soon. If the joke is still in there, you will know. The joke goes like this:

About 10 minutes in, people poke fun at a 10 year old boy because of his interest in theater.. (crack a "gay" type joke)
About 40 minutes in, the kid is making up something, I don't know (another crack about his artsy nature)
In the big scene, a ballet at a school, everyone in the theater is agape, including one of the principles pointing to the little boy and saying something to the effect of "holy s--- that kid is packing a GIANT penis!" This goes on for about 3 minutes, as everyone in the theater "gasps" and women have their mouths drop open, etc.

All the time, everyone in the row I was with was thinking: WTF. We have established earlier in the film that the kid is TEN YEARS OLD. It was a joke that was not only bad, but the fact it kept going on, including the father high-fiving another parent over the size of his ten year old's endowment was.. just wrong. I can't think of a joke I've seen in a film I just thought: It's not just crass and bad taste, it's wildly unfunny

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Well, I got sunburned really bad on vacation so I had to stay inside so I checked out GROWN UPS 2. This scene you mentioned isn't in the movie but I didn't read this until after I saw the movie. While watching the film I thought your comment was going to be aimed at the scene where the mother tells someone that her 2 (or 3) year old son was her lover.

Overall, a poorly made film but it was better than THO3.