The Hangover Part III

THE HANGOVER PART III

Director : Todd Phillips

Year : 2013

Genre : Comedy

Rating : 1/2*

Ha ha, isn't it funny? It's poking fun at 'Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows : Part II'. No.

It's over. It's finally over! After 4 years of waiting and after having endured 3 dreadful movies which took the best part of 8 hours of my life away from me, Todd Phillips finally concludes his hugely successful 'Hangover' trilogy. Unfortunately, he has left the worst till last and while the 2 previous installments were very bad, 'The Hangover : Part III' is unbearably, unspeakably awful; unfunny, boring, stupid, badly acted, badly written and badly directed. To be honest, I'm not going to spend a lot of time reviewing this dreck because frankly, it don't think it even deserves recognition for being as ghastly and as recid as it is. But if you enjoy watching unlikable characters, painfully unfunny jokes, characters that are beyond racist and a plot that has the same attention value as a piece of paper, then 'The Hangover Part III' may be for you. For everyone else, please don't watch this film. By paying for the DVD, you are only fueling the directors and producers fire to make more of these cinematic abominations. It baffles me why these films are so popular and why the general public will spend tens of pounds to watch 3 idiots embarrass themselves on screen time and time and time again.

After the sudden death of his Dad, the Wolfpack reunite to get Alan treated for his growing mental problems. But on the way to the hospital, the group is assaulted and just like every other 'Hangover' movie, Doug is kidnapped. To save him, they must once again find Leslie Chow who has recently broke out of prison and hand him over the mob boss (played by John Goodman) who took Doug for ransom. What ensues is a basic heist movie with added non - gags and instantly hate able characters.

To say that 'The Hangover Part III' is a lazy movie is such an understatement. Made purely for the money and not for the millions of fans who paid for the 'pleasure' of watching the first two films, Todd Phillips has completely undermined his own franchise and has turned the final film of his trilogy into a generic heist movie, rather than sticking to the wild, uncontrollable antics that made the original and it's sequel (slightly) interesting.   Drinking doesn't even feature in the film; strange for a movie called 'The Hangover Part III' isn't it? The heist itself is as dull as ditchwater and doesn't make a captivating narrative AT ALL. Apart from being a comedic cemetery, this plotline is very, very boring and fails to hold our attention for any considerable stretch of time. The screenplay is terrible and the jokes are beyond obvious and just not funny. I'm sorry for repeating myself but it is shocking how ridiculously unfunny this so called 'comedy' film is. It resembles nothing of a traditional laughie and actually questions my own sense of humour and my credentials for being a critic. But if it's not a comedy, what is it? A horror? Definetly. 

The cast is as useless ever; Bradley Cooper (who got an Academy Award nomination) and Ed Helms are reduced to being secondary characters. They serve the plot in no way at all and their dialogue is basically reacting to the antics of Alan, the main character of the film. Yes, Alan. The annoying, disgracefully embarrasing man - child played by Zack Galifianakis is the central protagonist of a movie!!! Giving him a horrible mean streak and an uncharacteristically selfish nature, Alan becomes one of the worst characters of the year. In the first two movies, he really only served as the comedic fall guy; not given much to do but toperform a prat fall every so often or a little bit of not very good physical comedy. Here, he is the entire focus of the film and the effect is like a condom covered in sand. Ken Jeong returns as Leslie Chow, one of the most offensive stereotypes ever created and who is about as funny as a dead Labrador. 

Not since 'Movie 43' have I felt so empty after watching a film. It drained me of goodwill, it drained me of love. It's even drained me of hope. If a bunch of idiot executives can find this unbelievably tired material funny, then maybe humankind is doomed and more deserving of extinction that what we truly realise. 2012 was meant to be the year of the apocalypse but I think the Mayans were out by a year. They foresaw this horror and believed that life for us is really not worth living. Ooh, those Mayans were a smart race. 

The best thing about 'The Hangover Part III' is that it signifies the end of one of the worst series of films ever created. They have been poisoning our multiplexes for nearly half a decade now and will inevitably live on in the minds of 13 year old boys who were amused by the forced profanity and the completely needless nudity. Boring, dull, predictable and unfunny, 'The Hangover' series is dead and gone and while some people may mourn this tragic loss, I am currently dancing on it's grave.

''Ding Dong, The Beast Is Dead!''