There is no facility that can fix this guy.

The Hangover Part III

(2013)

While it made a huge wad of cash, the second Hangover movie roundly took a beating from critics (and had a mixed reception from audiences). It was virtually the same as the first one, they decried. Presumably Todd Phillips was listening, which is why he eschews the (surely essential?) memory-defective structure in favour of something more linear. And more run-of-the-mill. The response wasn’t good; it took $200m less than its predecessor worldwide. And I can quite see why. Part III may not be a terrible movie but crucially neither is it a terribly funny one.

For my part, I rather like Part II. I’m not sure why rehashing the premise of the original was considered such a cardinal crime (since most sequels are guilty of the same), and the picture zips along crudely and colourfully. I was unconcerned that the characters weren’t likable; my only demand was for the film to be funny, which it was. So the complaints about the general air of unpleasantness and misanthropy were rather lost on me. It seemed no more offensive than the average US R-rated comedy, and the unsympathetic nature of the Wolf Pack (Alan – Zach Galifianakis, Phil – Bradley Cooper, and Stu – Ed Helms) felt more like a debauched spin on the “learn nothing” premise of Seinfeld than a portend of the downfall of western civilisation.

Part III, shorn of its morning-after set up, has to cast about for another motor to drive its plot. So Phillips and co-writer Craig Mazin turn to perceived audience favourite Mr Chow (Ken Jeong). He busts out of a Thai prison, and goes to ground. Crime lord Marshall (John Goodman) is out to get even with Chow, and demands that the Wolf Pack track him down. Doug (Justin Bartha) is held hostage as leverage (so keeping Bartha off screen for most of the movie is retained at least).

Chow’s role in Part II was beefed up, and here he is virtually a fourth member of the Pack. Unfortunately Chow requires decent scenarios if he’s not to become merely a shrill annoyance. There are occasional moments (singing Johnny Cash’s version of Hurt, screaming “I love cocaine” while paragliding, and a cut to him gleefully exclaiming “I’m out of my fucking mind”, just after the Wolf Pack have observed the same thing).

Galifianakis’ shtick is wearing a bit thin by this point also, and his attempts at humour fall mostly flat. Which sort of works in terms of the film’s bleak starting position (following the giraffe incident seen in the trailer, and his father’s death, an intervention is staged; the plan is to take Alan to a rehab facility). But the gags he is given are just lousy (he has a beautiful singing voice). It’s only when Alan meets Cassie (Melissa McCarthy) that Phillips and Mazin find something distinctive for the beardy-weirdy to do, even if the of whacky peas-in-a-pod soul mates subplot is desperately unoriginal.

Cooper and Helms barely register, with the latter’s antagonism towards Alan soon dropped (likewise, the theme that they don’t even really give a shit about Alan seems to have been forgotten by time of the end credits sequence). The former spends his time looking studly and not much else. The attempt to evoke the spirit of the previous movies by featuring an actual hangover during the end credits may barely justify the picture’s title, but it’s has a dreadfully weak “Look what they did this time!” punch line. If that’s the kind of comedy gold they had in reserve, it’s just as well Part III is played mostly straight.

Talking of which, what a complete waste of John Goodman. He’s a brilliantly funny actor so they stick him playing a sullen heavy? It’s nice to see the lovely Heather Graham again, but she only appears for five minutes. And well done for not finding a place for Mike Tyson (my ears still haven’t recovered from the assault he committed at the end of Part II).

Nevertheless, while I wish they hadn’t gone the route of making a crime picture, the picture itself isn’t unwatchable. Nor does it outstay its welcome; Phillips has kept each of his pictures around the 100-minute mark, and this is no exception. It’s probably the maximum length you want for a comedy (although, as I’ve said, this isn’t really a comedy... ) Phillips also continues to strive against the point-and-shoot approach found in most comedies. The Hangovers are some of the best looking US comedies around, and the director is consistently visually inventive; he needs to be, as the return to Las Vegas rather inhibits the possibilities (he really shone with the Thai locations in Part II).

So The Hangover Part III takes out the jokes that were the main attraction of the comedy franchise, and it even bypasses the titular physical state during the film proper. The characters have little place left to go, and the focus on Chow is a mistake in as much as it further accentuates these shortcomings. Whatever Phillips did, the critics were going to hate this movie, so it’s a shame he was so stung by Part II’s reception that he threw out the baby with the bath water. Perhaps he just wasn’t inspired to be funny. It’s hard to say if Part III would have been a bigger hit if it had repeated the formula; I know I’d have been happier, but audiences just weren’t there on opening weekend Perhaps it’s a case where the success of Part II didn’t reflect how it ultimately went down (see also Shrek 2 and Dead Man’s Chest). Or perhaps the public saw the ads and rightly decided the title was a great big fib.

**1/2

I’m smarter than a beaver.

Prey (2022) (SPOILERS) If nothing else, I have to respect Dan Trachtenberg’s cynical pragmatism. How do I not only get a project off the ground, but fast-tracked as well? I know, a woke Predator movie! Woke Disney won’t be able to resist! And so, it comes to pass. Luckily for Prey , it gets to bypass cinemas and so the same sorry fate of Lightyear . Less fortunately, it’s a patience-testing snook cocking at historicity (or at least, assumed historicity), in which a young, pint-sized Comanche girl who wishes to hunt and fish – and doubtless shoot to boot – with the big boys gets to take on a Predator and make mincemeat of him. Well, of course , she does. She’s a girl, innit?

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Pulp Fiction (1994) (SPOILERS) From a UK perspective, Pulp Fiction ’s success seemed like a fait accompli; Reservoir Dogs had gone beyond the mere cult item it was Stateside and impacted mainstream culture itself (hard to believe now that it was once banned on home video); it was a case of Tarantino filling a gap in the market no one knew was there until he drew attention to it (and which quickly became over-saturated with pale imitators subsequently). Where his debut was a grower, Pulp Fiction hit the ground running, an instant critical and commercial success (it won the Palme d’Or four months before its release), only made cooler by being robbed of the Best Picture Oscar by Forrest Gump . And unlike some famously-cited should-have-beens, Tarantino’s masterpiece really did deserve it.

I’m the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.

Last Action Hero (1993) (SPOILERS) Make no mistake, Last Action Hero is a mess. But even as a mess, it might be more interesting than any other movie Arnie made during that decade, perhaps even in his entire career. Hellzapoppin’ (after the 1941 picture, itself based on a Broadway revue) has virtually become an adjective to describe films that comment upon their own artifice, break the fourth wall, and generally disrespect the convention of suspending disbelief in the fictions we see parading across the screen. It was fairly audacious, some would say foolish, of Arnie to attempt something of that nature at this point in his career, which was at its peak, rather than playing it safe. That he stumbled profoundly, emphatically so since he went up against the behemoth that is Jurassic Park (slotted in after the fact to open first), should not blind one to the considerable merits of his ultimate, and final, really, attempt to experiment with the limits of his screen persona.

Everyone creates the thing they dread.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (SPOILERS) Avengers: Age of Ultron ’s problem isn’t one of lack. It benefits from a solid central plot. It features a host of standout scenes and set pieces. It hands (most of) its characters strong defining moments. It doesn’t even suffer now the “wow” factor of seeing the team together for the first time has subsided. Its problem is that it’s too encumbered. Maybe its asking to much of a director to effectively martial the many different elements required by an ensemble superhero movie such as this, yet Joss Whedon’s predecessor feels positively lean in comparison. Part of this is simply down to the demands of the vaster Marvel franchise machine. Seeds are laid for Captain America: Civil War , Infinity Wars I & II , Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok . It feels like several spinning plates too many. Such activity occasionally became over-intrusive on previous occasions ( Iron Man II ), but there are points in Age of Ultron whe

Poetry in translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.

Paterson (2016) (SPOILERS) Spoiling a movie where nothing much happens is difficult, but I tend to put the tag on in a cautionary sense much of the time. Paterson is Jim Jarmusch at his most inert and ambient but also his most rewardingly meditative. Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver and modest poet living in Paterson, New Jersey, is a stoic in a fundamental sense, and if he has a character arc of any description, which he doesn’t really, it’s the realisation that is what he is. Jarmusch’s picture is absent major conflict or drama; the most significant episodes feature Paterson’s bus breaking down, the English bull terrier Marvin – whom Paterson doesn’t care for but girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) dotes on – destroying his book of poetry, and an altercation at the local bar involving a gun that turns out to be a water pistol. And Paterson takes it all in his stride, genial to the last, even the ruination of his most earnest, devoted work (the only disappoint

Death to Bill and Ted!

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) (SPOILERS) The game of how few sequels are actually better than the original is so well worn, it was old when Scream 2 made a major meta thing out of it (and it wasn’t). Bill & Ted Go to Hell , as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey was originally called, is one such, not that Excellent Adventure is anything to be sneezed at, but this one’s more confident, even more playful, more assured and more smartly stupid. And in Peter Hewitt it has a director with a much more overt and fittingly cartoonish style than the amiably pedestrian Stephen Herrick. Evil Bill : First, we totally kill Bill and Ted. Evil Ted : Then we take over their lives. My recollection of the picture’s general consensus was that it surpassed the sleeper hit original, but Rotten Tomatoes’ review aggregator suggests a less universal response. And, while it didn’t rock any oceans at the box office, Bogus Journey and Point Break did quite nicely for Keanu Reev

If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) (SPOILERS) There’s something daringly perverse about the attempt to weave a serious-minded, generation-spanning saga from the hare-brained premise of The Place Beyond the Pines . When he learns he is a daddy, a fairground stunt biker turns bank robber in order to provide for his family. It’s the kind of “only-in-Hollywood” fantasy premise you might expect from a system that unleashed Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Point Break on the world. But this is an indie-minded movie from the director of the acclaimed Blue Valentine ; it demands respect and earnest appraisal. Unfortunately it never recovers from the abject silliness of the set-up. The picture is littered with piecemeal characters and scenarios. There’s a hope that maybe the big themes will even out the rocky terrain but in the end it’s because of this overreaching ambition that the film ends up so undernourished. The inspiration for the movie

This entire edifice you see around you, built on jute.

Jeeves and Wooster 3.3: Cyril and the Broadway Musical (aka Introduction on Broadway) Well, that’s a relief. After a couple of middling episodes, the third season bounces right back, and that's despite Bertie continuing his transatlantic trip. Clive Exton once again plunders Carry On, Jeeves but this time blends it with a tale from The Inimitable Jeeves for the brightest spots, as Cyril Basington-Basington (a sublimely drippy Nicholas Hewetson) pursues his stage career against Aunt Agatha's wishes.

I think it’s pretty clear whose side the Lord’s on, Barrington.

Monte Carlo or Bust aka Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969) (SPOILERS) Ken Annakin’s semi-sequel to Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines tends to be rather maligned, usually compared negatively to its more famous predecessor. Which makes me rather wonder if those expressing said opinion have ever taken the time to scrutinise them side by side. Or watch them back to back (which would be more sensible). Because Monte Carlo or Bust is by far the superior movie. Indeed, for all its imperfections and foibles (not least a performance from Tony Curtis requiring a taste for comic ham), I adore it. It’s probably the best wacky race movie there is, simply because each set of competitors, shamelessly exemplifying a different national stereotype (albeit there are two pairs of Brits, and a damsel in distress), are vibrant and cartoonish in the best sense. Albeit, it has to be admitted that, as far as said stereotypes go, Annakin’s home side win

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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