Summer Movie Series: The Hangover

The Hangover

No one told Baby Carlos that oversize sunglasses are sooo last season.

So, this movie came out Friday and I have already seen it twice. It's pretty great. I usually don't like this genre of films (stupid funny, Apatow-like), but I laughed through most of The Hangover. I think this was because it didn't have too much nudity, language, or disgusting dialogue. It was a little bit of all of that, but never too much. That stuff usually overpowers a movie in favor of cheap laughs, but the laughs in this film were quite genuine.

The movie starts out with a flash forward of Bradley Cooper's character, Phil, calling Doug's (the missing groom) wife. He tells her they messed up and lost Doug during their bachelor party in Vegas and that they won't make the wedding. The film then flashes back to two days before with the guys leaving for their night in Vegas. Doug is accompanied by his friends Phil and Stu (The Office's Ed Helms), and his future brother-in-law, Alan (Tru Calling's Zach Galifianakis). Phil is an over-confident schoolteacher with a wife and son, Stu is a quiet dentist with a mean controlling girlfriend, and Alan is an awkward lone wolf that is apparently the ugly child of the family. The guys quickly upgrade to a deluxe suite upon their arrival and toast to a great night on the roof of Caesar's Palace (Alan's speech is hillarious!). Then we see three of the four guys wake up to a destroyed room with no memory of the night before, and the movie truly begins. Besides the mess, Alan has lost his pants, Stu has lost his tooth, Phil has a hospital wristband, there is a tiger in the bathroom, and a baby is crying in the closet.

The guys decide their main objective is to find Doug and start off at their first lead, the hospital. A busy doctor gives them their next hint on where to check when Doug isn't at the hospital, and Stu is soon in for a big shock when he finds out what HE did last night. Each stop along their search leads to new problems and questions, including how they all got drugged and why the valet pulled up with a cop car instead of the car they came in.

One of the more difficult situations the guys get in is when they end up at the police station. They are able to talk there way ou of jail time, but their punishment is almost worse. As the movie progresses, you kind of end up rooting for the three guys despite finding out all the stupid stuff they did the night before. Towards the end of the movie, the guys start turning their luck around when they look to gambling to make some fast cash. Alan's entrance on the escalator is priceless, and just watching him come in had me laughing for about 5 minutes.

You are excited to piece together the mystery of where Doug is with Stu, Phil. and Alan, and when they finally figure it out, you are almost more happy than the characters. The acting is great, and I was especially impressed with Zach. He was okay on Tru Calling, but I didn't realize his forte was comedy. His character is that typical tag a long guy that always takes a joke too far and makes it awkward, but like Stu and Phil, you quickly get past the awkwardness and find him funny and endearing. Heather Graham is cute as usual as the stripper mom and basically plays the same character as she did in Austin Powers. Ken Jeong does his usual over the top comedy (think Role Models), but puts a fresh spin on it by playing up the gay part more. His lines were lame, but the way he said them made it work.

I also must compliment the music choices. They play a lot of the cheesy guy party music, like Usher's "Yeah" and Flo Rida's "Right Round," but it fits the movie really well. "Right Round" plays during the credits as a montage of photos from the night scroll by. This montage is practically the best part of the movie. They go through about 75 photos or so of some really inappropriate events of the night, but it goes so fast that none of the photos can be too offensive. You've also pieced together the night already from the rest of the movie, so the photos just fill in the visual details for you. Make sure you stay for this part. I promise you'll be laughing the whole time as each photo is more shocking than the next.

As I mentioned about three times, go see this. It's probably the best comedy I have seen in a long time and it is getting great reviews. I would give it 5 stars for simply being such a surprise hit. It's definitely not one of those movies where only the funny parts are in the trailer. There is much more to come in the movie.