Synopsis
It’s been two years. Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Doug (Justin Bartha) are happily living uneventful lives at home. Tattoos have been lasered off, files purged. The last they heard from disaster-magnet Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong), he’d been tossed into a Thai prison and, with him out of the way, the guys have very nearly recovered from their nights prowling the seamy side of Las Vegas in a roofie’d haze, and being kidnapped, shot at, and chased by drug-dealing mobsters in Bangkok.
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The only member of the Wolfpack who’s not content is Alan (Zach Galifianakis). Still lacking a sense of purpose, the group’s black sheep has ditched his meds and given in to his natural impulses in a big way – which, for Alan, means no boundaries, no filters and no judgment – until a personal crisis forces him to finally seek the help he needs.
And who better than his three best friends to make sure he takes the first step. This time, there’s no bachelor party. No wedding. What could possibly go wrong? But when the Wolfpack hits the road, all bets are off.
Hangover III was probably a good stopping point for this series. While Doug (Justin Bartha), Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) were on their way to Arizona to get Alan some help with his personal life, a man named Marshall (John Goodman), and his cronies, tracks the wolf pack down and kidnaps Doug. The purpose? The group was last to contact Leslie Chow, who escaped his asian prison, so Marshall assumes they can track him down, as well as the gold Chow has stolen from them. If they don’t, they run the risk of Marshall’s group shooting Doug.
The perfect setup, right? It is the perfect setup, but it isn’t treated very well along the way. Todd Phillips seems to have an issue with balancing out the multiple storylines going on within Hangover III. He puts a lot of the bulk of development into making Chow’s thieving ways into the most important part of the story, while sacrificing what the group is supposed to be doing for Alan. It sounds like that’s how it should be, but Chow’s story just doesn’t create enough comedy or comedic moments to keep the movie as interesting as maybe a road trip with Alan. Don’t get me wrong, you get some decent moments here with Chow, but nothing that goes over the top or is overly funny. The possibilities that could have been created with Alan’s road trip to get help, might have created better moments for comedy, as well as included Chow as a secondary story. Because it wasn’t built that way, by the end of the film, when we finally return to the moment where Alan is supposed to continue his journey, it goes absolutely nowhere, and we feel nothing for Alan’s progress or ‘moment’. It just seemed like Phillips and crew didn’t have a clear focus on what they wanted to do with this film, so they threw in parts to try to create the best comedic situation. Sadly, it just didn’t work well.
With that said, Galifianakis and Cooper do their best to keep the comedy fresh, but after a while it gets overshadowed by the dull chase that is ensuing with Chow. It’s quite an odd comedy because the comedy never reaches the point that the previous films reached. Quite literally there were moments where the comedy just fell flat on its face. For example, there is a scene where Alan is flirting with a pawnshop owner named Cassie (Melissa McCarthy), who is gruff and a bit ‘off’. The scene was completely built around those two characters and the back/forth comedy tennis match that they were trying to create. It never got above an ‘ew’ or a ‘chuckle’. It never hit home as the original movie hit home with moments like this. Quite honestly, it just seemed like maybe Phillips was reaching for any comedy value, as if he had burned himself out from the previous films, or simply told the wrong story.
Again, it was odd, but that’s how the entire film felt.
Is there any redeeming value in the movie? Yeah, the scenes with Chow are pretty good. He can’t carry the entire film, like he was asked to, but Chow does his best to bring the wackiness of the series to the surface of the water before it drowns. The scenes in Vegas and the scenes at Marshall’s house are well done. Hell, the opening scene that is supposed to parody the Shawshank Redemption escape scene is comedic gold. Ken Jeong does his very best to keep the film moving along, but the story just ultimately fails him in the end.
Overall, this is definitely in last place in terms of entertainment value in the trilogy. The cast seemed to be all in to make this work, but the story just stops all their efforts. If you enjoyed the first two films then you should wrap it up with the third. If you haven’t seen the first two, see those before giving this a go.
For a comedy, the Blu-ray portion of the film looked outstanding. They didn’t have to make it look gorgeous, but they did. You get a lot of yellow, blue and red tints in the film that really stand out well. The green screen stuff isn’t even detectable in HD, which is always a huge plus. There are no compression or color banding issues, especially in those green screen scenes (sometimes it happens with the keying). It’s truly another shining example of how Warner Home Video knows how to make a Blu-ray look good. An excellent HD transfer.
The audio comes to you in DTS-HD 5.1 and the aspect ratio is 2.4:1.
Finally, as for the features, here’s what you’re getting:
· Replacing Zach: The Secret Auditions
· Outtakes
· The Wolfpack’s Wildest Stunts
· Zach Galifianakis in His Own Words
· Pushing the Limits
· Action Mash-Up
· Inside Focus: The Real Chow
· Extended Scenes
Without a doubt, these features are excellent. The outtakes are hilarious, though more Alan-centralized. The ‘Replacing Zach’ is freaking funny, as you get to see fake auditions from various actors (and non-actors) who are trying to replace Zach Galifianakis in the film. The rest of the featurettes just add a bit more comedy value and perspective to the overall Blu-ray experience. There are some good things here, not just fluff. The only thing missing from this list is commentary. I would have loved to hear the group do some commentary over the film. Overall, darn good features.
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