The Hangover Part II

Directed by Todd Phillips (R)

**

“Is this some kind of a test?” said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Not only does The Hangover Part II play as “a challenge to the audience’s capacity for raunchiness,” but its plot is exactly the same as the last movie’s—except that the setting has been moved from Las Vegas to Bangkok. Once again, three male buddies must piece together what went wrong when they wake up after a bachelor party in a strange hotel room that bears “ominous signs of debauchery.” Because the movie aims for straight replication, the gags and plot turns can’t help but seem a bit calculated, said Mary Pols in Time. But the chemistry between goofy Ed Helms, passive-aggressive Zach Galifianakis, and pretty-boy Bradley Cooper is something special: “The way they work against and with one another” is what makes the redundancy watchable. You might get even more from watching the two Hangovers side by side, said Ann Hornaday in The Washington Post. Yes, this film throws in some male frontal nudity “where you least expect it,” but mostly it’s a note-for-note replica that “inadvertently points up the weaknesses” of the poorly paced 2009 original. If you’ve been waiting for 2011’s “go-for-broke raunchy comedy” that breaks taboos in service of reaching new emotional highs, you might want to buy a ticket to Bridesmaids.

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