The Hangover: Part III

The Hangover series comes to a merciful close with an installment that’s at least a slight improvement over its immediate predecessor, with the narrative, thankfully, going in a slightly different direction than the first two films (ie there’s no actual hangover this time around). The movie, which follows Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) as they’re forced to track down Ken Jeong’s nefarious Mr. Chow by a ruthless gangster (John Goodman’s Marshall), is actually at its best in its opening half hour, as filmmaker Todd Phillips has infused the proceedings with an affable feel that compensates for the lack of wholeheartedly funny elements. (All three of these films have fared especially poorly in terms of laughs, but The Hangover: Part III‘s cruel streak, particularly towards animals, ensures that the viewer sits stone-faced throughout.) It’s not until the three protagonists embark on their predictably tedious quest that one’s interest begins to demonstrably flag, as the narrative follows the formula laid out by the first two films to a progressively tiresome extent – with the familiar atmosphere compounded by an emphasis on lazy, by-the-numbers set pieces (eg the guys break into a Mexican villa to steal a cache of gold). The lifeless vibe persists for much of the movie’s overlong running time, and although the return to Vegas towards the end is kind of amusing, The Hangover: Part III has long-since established itself as a predictably pointless closer to a consistently half-baked franchise (ie it’s saying something that this is the least objectionable installment in the series).

** out of ****