The Hangover Part III: Movie Review

You know that one joke you tell at every party? It was hilarious the first time you told it. So you kept telling it over and over again. You told your mom, your friends, your wacky uncle and heck you even told it to your baby sister. Each time you tell that joke it lost some of its charm and you know this in your heart, but you keep telling it because it made you someone who was atleast bearable at the office party. The Hangover Part III is THAT dreaded, self-destructive joke. 

The The Hangover was a surprise to everyone. It was a smart, engaging and an all-around funny move. It made the three protagonists into overnight stars, along with Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong). Since The Hangover these four guys have experienced great success; Bradley Cooper has been nominated for an Oscar, Ed Helms became a little more then just Andy from The Office, and Zach Galifianakis (the funniest of the bunch) starred on HBO’s Bored to Death and Ken Jeong is a recurring character on Community. It’s no surprise then that The Hangover made these guys in demand, and had the audience craving for more. So what better way to give the masses what they want than bringing the Wolf Pack back together for two more subpar movies. 

The Hangover Part III brings the crew back together for yet another wacky adventure, this time getting them to go to Tijuana and back to Vegas. There isn’t really much to tell you about the plot that you can’t figure out yourself. So it makes very little sense to go in any further detail about it, and I can move on to things that worked.

By far the funniest moment during the movie for my money's worth was when some girl in the theater screamed out loud after seeing one of the main character dangle for his life. The whole theater roared, and it was a genuinely hilarious moment. Too bad the same can’t be said about the rest of the movie. No doubt there were some funny moments and personally the best bits of the movie were when Melissa Mccarthy was on the screen. Some of the other funniest moments were throwbacks to the original. I found myself doing a lot of ”ooh I remember that from the first movie. Ha ha that reference is funny.” Unfortunately that is all this movie is, it’s a reminder of how great The Hangover was and we should nostalgia-laugh (is something I just made up) because we once thought there was no one funnier than Zack Galifianakis. Other than that any original content was drab at best. 

The best laughs came from all the supporting characters, and the 'Big 3' it felt like were just there to collect the pay check. Bradly Cooper was by far the worst of the bunch. It’s hard to believe that this is the same guy who was nominated for an Oscar not very long ago. Ed Helms and Zack Galifianakis were at least trying.

It was the overall chemistry of the three characters that made the original so great. The Hangover was a perfect recipe of Mac and Cheese where you threw in random ingredients and IT WAS THE BEST MAC AND CHEESE YOU EVER MADE! You tried replicating the original time after time, and tasted nothing but fake cheese and disappointment. It was just another Mac and Cheese. Sure it was served its purpose of feeding your broke student ass, but you yearned for that perfect gourmet Mac and Cheese fit to serve Gordon Ramsay himself.  

The Hangover Part III is not a movie for people who are looking for genuine comedy. There are some very funny moments but the cheap laughs far outnumber the good ones. If you’re going in expecting a repeat of The Hangover then don’t waste your time and money. If you were disappointed by The Hangover Part II this movie will only throw salt on your wounds. It’s sad to see such an initially brilliant trilogy end like this. The Hangover Part III was nothing but one last attempt at squeezing every last dollar from the franchise. The Hangover Part III gets 5 nostalgia-laughs out of 10.

And as always Special thanks to Ammad Wajahat, who can eat nothing but Philly Cheese Stakes for the rest of his life. 

 

Go Goa Gone: Movie Review

Go Goa Gone is a pretty good movie for the first of its kind in Bollywood. Apart from your typical Bollywood annoyances this movie was quite entertaining. Granted my opinion on this is fairly biased given my love for Zombie flicks, however I believe it stands on its own. The movie borrowed ideas from Zombieland and Shaun of the Dead that were easily recognizable and familiar; although nowhere as blatantly as many other Bollywood movie. Also, the setting of the movie felt eerily like the video game: Dead Island. Few scenes felt like they were exactly the same as some missions in the game.

The overall acting was good and the jokes were smart and stuck for most parts, some more than others. The chemistry between the three protagonists, and overall cast was spot on. Saif Ali Khan’s pseudo Russian Mafioso was an entertaining gag when originally introduced but it got a little old and drabby after a while. The female lead in the movie was underused and felt like a background character, other than being your prototypical Bollywood 'Damsel in distress'. 

The plot is very simple (like any other zombie movie) and can be easily figured out. The movie follows a very typical zombie flick formula: Intro to the main characters, putting them in a setting of zombies, explaining the origin of zombies (little lacklustre in this move), figuring out how to fight and kill zombies, the lack of ability to shoot the zombies at first and complete mastery of headshots by the end of the movie (which in this case was about half a day), and so on. This movie is as original as any zombie movie can get. Every scene was fairly predictable. Not to say that this is a bad thing, all zombie movies are alike. It’s the chemistry between the characters that really separate the greats from the rest. As liner as this movie was, the surprising anecdote about zombies which was cheesier than the cheesiest cheese cake, felt original. I laughed out loud several times during the movie; admittedly the humor was along the lines of 3 Idiots and Delhi Belly i.e. buddy movies with a lot of raunch.

The movie was 1 hour and 48 minutes in length, which is a little long for a movie of this sort. 1 hour and 30 to 40 minutes max is ideal for a zombie flick. It’s hard to keep the audience immersed. The jokes get lazy and pushy and the situations where protagonist has to escape the zombie hoards get nuttier and nuttier to the point of complete disbelief.

 
My biggest complaint against this movie is its anti-smoking campaign.

It’s almost ridiculous to see an anti-smoking campaign in a movie about pot-smoking booze hounds itching for parties that feature Mary Jane. There was an abundance of smoking scenes that featured small messages warning against smoking. It’s almost like the NRA running ads that featured gun-related killings and having messages popping up simultaneously that say “Don’t shoot people in the face. Shooting people in the face is bad.” I understand that the movie means well and doesn’t want to glamorize smoking, but omitting smoking altogether from the movie would be more effective anti-smoking rhetoric than a miniscule, meaningless and insincere insulting sign at the bottom of the screen.

Overall though, I would recommend this movie to any zombie fans out there. If you’re not a fan of Bollywood but enjoy zombies it’s still worth the watch. The nod to Bollywood cheesiness near the end of the movie was worth the price all on its own.There were obvious “Are you serious? He would totally get bitten in that situation.” type of scenes and the anti-smoking messages were very annoying. However, they are forgivable because it’s Bollywood’s first attempt at the genre and from the looks of it they have done a good job.

And as always special thanks to Ammad Wajahat.