The Hangover 3: Very stupid, very funny

MANILA, Philippines – “The Hangover 3″ is smartest (and believe me, that is not much of a compliment considering how incredibly dumb a lot of it is) when it is being faux-reverential to its “roots.” The self-awareness of the last installment in the adventures of the oft-intoxicated Wolf Pack helps cut through some of the very apparent darkness and raised stakes here.

Where the last couple of flicks opened generally happy with wedding plans and bachelor parties, here we get a gruesome animal death followed by a human death, and then a very heavy intervention scene. And then the series primaries, Alan (Zack Galifianakis), Phil (Bradley Cooper), and Stu (Ed Helms) are grabbed by someone connected to their shenanigans in the first flick and are threatened with death if they do not find and bring back the nefarious Chow (Ken Jeong).

New format

This movie eschews the series’ established format, the mystery. The charm of those two films for me lay in the characters using clues and whatever they found lying around about them to piece together the events of the night before. I found that to be very fun stuff, as the story unfolded in snippets and flashes, leading to all kinds of hilarious revelations.

Here we have mostly linear movement, and no hangover to recover from (unless you count the events of the last two films, as some kind of larger metaphorical hangover). Rather we have a series of bait-and-switches and action tropes (from trying to drug a guy, to breaking into a house, to some pretty impressive set pieces later in the film). It’s not that these don’t work, they do, in terms of keeping the movie propulsive. It’s just that I can’t help but miss the mystery of the last two.

Hangover 3 is mostly a crime flick with the Wolf Pack. It’s kind of sobering to see them dealing with incredibly high stakes. While this makes it exciting, it comes at the cost of the light-hearted fun of the previous flicks. Sure they were doing some terrible stuff, but most of it you could laugh off. Here, though a lot of it is funny, it isn’t as easily funny.

The second film was also very raunchy, and often too far over the top for many viewers. They’ve corrected this, and this has very little of that crazy wild drunk nights vibe.

Loads of laughs

Good thing then that for all of the new and different directions that the filmmakers decided to go in this flick, it stands as extremely funny. Whether it’s funny lines or great humor in the set pieces, “The Hangover 3” has packed in loads of laughs.

Cooper and Helms play straight men to two of the funniest comedic creations, Galifianakis’s Alan and Jeong’s Chow. These characters are like nothing else in comedy. Alan’s awkwardness, conviction, and total lack of self-awareness all make him a real dick, but they also make him endearing. You understand why despite all the terrible stuff that he’s done, his friends still stick by him. And Chow, well, that is just one of the best over the top wild man performances. Jeong’s a spark plug who brings scenes to life, and at times blows the whole thing up.

“The Hangover 3” is very funny. But it’s also very stupid. And if you didn’t like the first two films, or are only trying the series out here, I would recommend you watch something else. The series has a very defined and peculiar humor, which won’t work for everybody. If you did enjoy the earlier flicks, this movie is spot on for you. – Rappler.com

Carljoe Javier teaches at the UP Department of English and Comparative Literature. He has written a few books, most recently the new edition of The Kobayashi Maru of Love available from Visprint Inc. and the upcoming Writing 30 available as an ebook at amazon, ibookstore, b&n and flipreads.com.