A review of 'The Hangover III' - One too many hangovers

Having a hangover is no fun at all. I’m guessing that they are responsible for at least 60% of all the misery being caused throughout the lands on a Saturday morning. However, it appears that the Wolf Pack are able to do the impossible when most of us would be unable to lift our heads off the pillow through fear of being overwhelmed by the movement of the earth beneath our feet.

There seems to be a rule in Hollywood that there can either be one film or there has to be three and as every fan will tell you; the first one is always better. The Hangover was the break out success of the ultimate whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, a buddy comedy caper that was silly, surreal and at times hilariously funny. The second installment was a little samey but was at least watchable with the likable cast returning for a similar caper on the other side of the world, but with the stakes very much raised with the Bangkok the boys found themselves in feeling far more threatening than the previous adventures in Caesars palace.

However, the third film feels devoid of all the charm of the previous two. The cast feel as if they are phoning this one in, especially Bradley Cooper who at time you believe doesn't particularly want to be there and is under some hideous contractual obligation that he overlooked. At one point Alan (Zack Galifianakis) asks Phil (Bradley Cooper) “Are you coming Phil?” almost as if the cast themselves can’t believe that they've managed to rope him into this when he really should be winning Oscars or attempting to sweep Jenifer Lawrence off her feet rather than performing in what is a mediocre comedy at best.

Now don’t get me wrong there are some moments that raised a chuckle. Ken Jeong is able to make a laugh at basically anything and I could watch Galifianakis just being and I would be entertained but this particular hangover fails to deliver the belly laughs of the first two. It may be that in the third and final film from Todd Phillips there isn’t even a hangover until after the credits, the single funniest bit in the whole feature.

So dropping the alcohol induced amnesia the group must now trying to convince man child Allan that he needs to go to rehab following the death of his father. However, things begin to go awry when gangster Marshall (John Goodman) appears wanting to find super villain Chow (Ken Jeong) as he’s stolen a shipment of gold bars from him. When the group profess ignorance he takes Doug (Justin Bartha) and gives the gang a timeline to bring him back unless Doug might once again meet a sticky end.

It’s all stuff that you've seen before, and it should be funny, really funny it’s just it’s not. Everyone on the screen seems to be sick of the joke and the trouble that the wolf pack find themselves in no longer feels like an organic development of the plot rather a desperate attempt to continue the narrative. It may be that it appears so forced as the dilemmas that appeared before the group in the previous two films were far-fetched yet at the same time entirely believable. We've all awoken in a morning barely able to see wondering what on earth happened last night only to retrace our steps to find that it was a night of mystery and adventure that may have involved complete strangers, copious amounts of alcohol and on particularly strange nights anything from traffic cones to livestock. However, very few of us have ever been tasked with tracking down an international criminal and seemingly the jokes don’t quite transfer between the two situations.

In the end it had to be made because Hollywood demanded it and it was going to make everyone involved a heap of money. All I ask now is that the wolf pack give up drinking so that there might not be a chance that they ever have to do this again.