The Hangover, Pt. II set itself a hard task from the start. Not only does it follow a film that was hugely popular and instantly-loved, but it also extends a franchise based on a simple concept that was successful in the original but didn’t leave much room for expansion.
It starts well, and gets a few laughs – as in the original, mostly thanks to Alan. This, however, is where the film falls down. Though the sequel was always going to have similarities with the first, the only attempt to do anything different was to ‘up the ante’. This only made the situations the characters got themselves into more ridiculous, making the film feel forced and formulaic.
It lost touch with what made the original so great – a certain empathy (though few of us have woken up alongside a baby and tiger, most will have tried at some point to patch together a forgotten night out). By focusing only on getting the characters into worse trouble than in the first, the serious implications of their actions are neglected. The characters lose fingers, overdose on cocaine, get shot and find themselves in high-speed car chases that destroy entire streets, and none of this seems to faze them.
The film lazily ties up the loose ends in its conclusion; after arriving late to the wedding by crashing a speed-boat onto the beach, the hard-ball father-of-the bride is completely sold after a short speech by the groom. This exemplifies the main flaw of the film – lazy writing. The writers move the characters from one absurd event to another without having them deal with the consequences, and as a result the film makes no effort to resemble reality.