Tag: Ken Jeong

Whenever I read the title of this movie, I imagine the adds for The Dump furniture store. And I put it in the voice of Duffman from the Simpsons.

Hopefully you just did that too.

The DUFF might be the final January movie of the year for me to watch. Sure it came out end of February, but you can tell by looking at the poster that it wanted to come out in January, but too much suck existed in that month so it got pushed back.

Who would delay us from watching this cheaply made porno movie for so long?

Bianca Piper (Mae Whitman) is a DUFF, but she doesn’t know that and doesn’t even know the acronym. It stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend, which every group of girls and guys has. You don’t have to be literally fat or super ugly, you just have to be less than all the other friends. This way your group of hotter thinner friends have a sort of gateway to them. If you are DUFF, you are easy to talk to and can give information about your better friends, for hook up purposes or whatever. Steven Lynch sang a song about them before they had a fun acronym.

Either way, Bianca has Casey (Bianca A. Santos) who is good at computers, hot, and good at sports and Jess (Skyler Samuels) who is into yoga, smart, and journalism. Well, they are all into journalism. Although they are totally real friends, they are also so totally DUFFing her.

She learns about the term from her next door neighbor, Wes (Robbie Amell), who is now totes max hunk but still talks together since they have been friends for so long. So once she finds out, she bails on her friends and decides to change things. She is going to be awesome on her own. She is going to unDUFF herself. But she doesn’t know how. So she works with Wes. He will help her get better and be able to talk to Toby (Nick Eversman), and she will help him pass Chemistry (so he can get scholarships, go to college, shit like that).

But wait! There is also Queen Bitch, Madison Morgan (Bella Thorne), who wants to be a future reality star and is working on being a youtube star first. She wants to ruin things and muck things up. That seems like an important plot point.

What is not important are the parents and teachers. Allison Janney is Bianca’s single mom, who is now a self help guru about getting over divorce! Chris Wylde and Ken Jeong play teachers and Romany Malco the principal.

The DUFF, in all reality, is a made for TV movie that for some reason someone put in theaters. There is nothing exceptional about it in any way. It is a comedy, but it doesn’t make you laugh. It is a high school movie, but it doesn’t offer anything new. Here is the IMDB description:

A high school senior instigates a social pecking order revolution after finding out that she has been labeled the DUFF

Social pecking order revolution? That means she is going to turn the school on its heels, probably with her sweet journalism skills, to make the DUFFs the cool kids? What? No where close? It is literally her just trying to make herself seem cooler to talk to a boy? Oh. Okay. Well that is kind of…two thirds of every high school story. Fuck.

I mean, the social pecking order revolution story line would have been just some angry kids wish fulfillment fantasy in real life, but at least it would have attempted to do something not normally done outside of Revenge of the Nerds. Instead this was just…boring if I had to say anything. And it had a couple of people involved I actually know of. I liked Mae in The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Parenthood. She just doesn’t do much of anything in this movie.

1 out of 4.

With the Penguins of Madagascar, every major animated release in the US in 2014 should now be reviewed on Gorgon Reviews. Hooray! Exciting!

Unfortunately it is the sequel/spinoff series to Madagascar, which I found to be very mediocre or bad. However, this one at least also had a TV show before it came out, so there is a lot of back stories with these characters and their adventures that I am wildly unaware of.

Bring on the penguins! They are cute I guess.

Holy, shit, we also get an Octopus? I am now ecstatic.

Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Rico (Conrad Vernon), and Private (Christopher Knights) are all penguins who make up a pretty unique fighting team. Or at least they think they are. Going on adventures, using code words, what have you. Recognize the voice actors? Exactly, because this movie isn’t sold on celebrities, it is sold on characters and people who are real voice actors, damn it.

Either way, while celebrating the 10th birthday of Private, directly after the events of Madagascar 3. While getting some sweet ass Cheezy Dibbles, they get kidnapped by Dave (John Malkovich, bring on the celebrities now!), an Octopus! Apparently Dave has had a shitty life of living in zoos all around the world, where he is always second fiddle and ignored thanks to cute animals like the penguins. PENGUINS.

So he wants to get rid of them all. Or make them ugly. Something like that. ALL THE PENGUINS MUST BE PUNISHED.

That should be enough plot for you. Spy movie guys. Lot of things happen. There is also another agent group, the North Force (Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Jeong, Annet Mahendru, and Peter Stormare).

I will let you decide which voice should go with which character.

Shit, if you like Octopuses in movies, you are going to love this movie. Yes, Octopuses, mother fucker. It is the right way. They all reminded me of Octodad a little bit, especially since the main octopus is wearing a human costume sometimes.

In all reality, it was just an okay movie. I am glad that the penguins all had personality, but they didn’t really make me laugh all that much. I thought North Force was underutilized and the big bad guy plot was pretty lame as well.

There was one ongoing joke throughout the film, involving celebrity names and puns. They were fantastic and clever. Well done on that department.

But comparing it to other animated movies, the quality is definitely lower (although in line with the Madagascar animation, so at least they are consistent). It probably feels like an extended episode of the penguin TV show, so if you like the show, you will probably like the movie.

It could have been worse. It could have featured Firework over and over.

2 out of 4.

Turbo is the latest example of a kids movie following a very standard formula. Let’s take some sort of entity and either a) give them an impossible dream (and reach it!), or b) give them some ridiculous flaw (and overcome it!). Like a bird who doesn’t know how to fly. Or a plane that is afraid of heights (and wants to race). Or an overweight comedian who wants to box. Or a snail who wants to race in the Indy 500. Oh wait, that one is Turbo!

Fuck. Let’s get this over with. Turbo (Ryan Reynolds) is a snail! He has big dreams. He wants to go fast, and is the fastest snail he knows. In fact, he just did the yard in 17 minutes, a new personal record. He dreams of entering the Indy 500, thanks to words of advice from his hero Guy Gagne (Bill Hader), who claims that no dream is too big. His brother Chet (Paul Giamatti) thinks his dream is stupid, rightfully so.

Well, eventually Turbo falls into a car engine and gets coated with NOS, transforming his DNA and giving him incredible speed! This also somehow turns him partially into a car, with headlights, radio, rear review lights and stuff. Not sure how that second part happened. Even more eventually, Chet and Turbo find themself caught by Tito (Michael Pena), a down on his luck Taco maker. He works for his older brother (Luis Guzman) and their business is not doing well. Why did Turbo decide to not run away as soon as they were captured? No idea. But he could have.

Luckily, Tito is all into snail racing. Turns out Turbo is stupid fast and he wants to use Turbo to get more business. A very noble cause. So they set off to enter him into the Indy 500, for exposure. Nowadays kids would just make a YouTube video and become famous that way.

Oh yeah, Turbo has his own snail crew to back him up now. There is Whiplash (Samuel L. Jackson), Smoove Move (Snoop Dogg), Burn (Maya Rudolph), Skidmark (Ben Schwartz), and White Shadow (Mike Bell). Of course Ken Jeong voices a tiny Asian nail technician.

This movie is about to get fucked. Seriously. No mercy. Cover your eyes if you don’t like violent imagery.Let’s start with some factual errors. Why? Because they matter to me. I am a Masters Geophysics Student, and the sloppiness bugged me. Basically I am going to be super critical.

Turbo made a big deal about getting a yard in 17 minutes. I know it was a yard, because they showed the measuring stick briefly. However, 36 inches in 17 minutes is really slow. Like, really really slow. That is why I went over to WolframAlpha to convert it. Seriously check the link.

WolframAlpha is so amazing it compared the velocity calculated to the the velocity of a garden snail automatically and it is about 33% the speed of the actual garden snail. Great, we have a snail that is statistically slower than most garden snails. Let’s say that factual error can be ignored, fine. Unfortunately, almost every other point in the movie (pre-genetic manipulation), Turbo and other snails are still shown with greater velocities than his trial. Unless it was important to the plot that is (see: the tomato/lawn mower scene).

Come on now, consistency.

[Editor’s note: Apparently IRL and F1 are different things, but similar vehicles. I just know them as “Not NASCAR”. Point still stands, basically.]
The ending bugged me a lot as well. As it is a car race, it involved a pile up of cars real close to the finish. At this point, Turbo and Guy go into a “foot race” type of situation for the finish like, similar to Talladega Nights.  But according to official Formula 1 racing rules (here and here specifically), none of it would count and the whole thing feels pointless.

Let’s get to the most important part of the movie. This plot is inherently stupid and bad. I didn’t read the full rules for the Formula 1 racing, so I can’t confirm if there is no rule that would disallow a snail. However, the concept behind it can only be described as cheating and a snail would never be allowed to race in such an event. They have very specific standards for the size of the vehicles, type of protection they need, everything you can possibly imagine. The snail’s dimensions do not match a car’s dimensions. For an extreme example, it’d be like using a Ferrari. Or like doping.

At one point during the race, the announcer screams that he can’t believe Turbo is passing a car from below. I am fine with his reaction, because Turbo is basically cheating. But the announcer is surprised instead that he could fit, even though Formula 1 cars have about 4.5 inches of room underneath them, while a garden snail is at most 1.5 inches tall.

If you hadn’t figured out by now, Guy is the villain of this movie, but only because he wants to win the race too. Just like the other 30ish humans in the race, all doing it without cheating.

I laughed I think a total of two times. The laziness of the plot, the laziness of the details, and the laziness of the character development ruined this movie for me. To quote Eleanor Roosevelt. “America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, bad-ass speed.” Turbo would not have lived up to the former First Lady’s opinions on America or Racing.

 

1 out of 4.

Despicable Me 2 might make the most money out of any CGI movie this summer, so it is kind of a big deal. But does it deserve that money?

The kid vote does not count, damn it. Despicable Me 2 starts us off soon after the first film. Gru (Steve Carell) is no longer a big bad villain because he has three kid to take care of, and he has had a change of heart. In fact, he has turned his whole secret laboratory into a secret jelly making factory, complete with free minion workers. With overheads that low, he can really make a splash in the market.

Unfortunately, the change in operation has left Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) with no joy in his life, so he leaves Gru to pursue other opportunities. Speaking of pursuing other opportunities, Gru gets kidnapped by the Anti-Villain League. Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan) wants Gru to lead an investigation on a disappearing arctic base that is researching chemicals that can cause ordinary creatures to become terrible beasts.

He would also get a new partner on the case, young and bubbly Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig). Oh yeah, she totally has the hots for him, too. This movie is mostly about Gru as a single dad and afraid to date. This provides many scenes of him avoiding the neighbors and awkwardly flirting with Lucy. Sure, maybe the world is threatened if this formula gets in the wrong hands, but love is also important.

Benjamin Bratt leads his vocals for El Macho / the mysterious Salsa Dancing restaurant owner who looks like El Macho, Ken Jeong as a mysteriously short wig salesman, and Kristen Schaal as a mysteriously well endowed blind date for Gru.

Spoiler, he does not choose the well endowed blind date by the end. Illumination Entertainment made the original Despicable Me in 2010, and is what they are most known for. That is because before Despicable Me 2, they have only made two other films, The Lorax and Hop, both ridiculous flops (and a bit terrible). So it makes sense they are already doing a sequel, and are releasing a spin-off titled just Minions in December 2014. What doesn’t make sense is how they have the rights to so many Dr. Seuss based movies down the pipe line, when they did so badly with their first chance.

Speaking of the Minions, did you love them from the first movie? They were arguably the best part of the first film, and quite cute. They have made sure that they advertise the fuck out of these minions for the sequel and eventual spinoff.

Basically, everywhere I look, there is a Minion based toy, gizmo, commercial, because “Hey, they are cute!” They recognize the best part, gave us a movie with potential for rich new characters, but then threw minions at our faces until we had to get new 3D Glasses. There is an overabundance of minions in this movie. They are in every scene, part of every plot point, and potentially in this movie more than Gru. It turns the entire movie into mostly slapstick based humor instead of witty jokes, which doesn’t help rewatchability or entertainment.

Basically I believe the main character is pushed out of the spotlight, similar to how Cars 2 was handled. At no point in the movie is he even considered despicable. In fact, he is rather admired and chased by women, loved by his family, and just a good guy. The plot is really straightforward, and you will figure out the main bad guy well before the reveal. The bad chemical itself was inconsistent with how it works, where it could have been fixed with a sentence of dialogue.

Long story short, Despicable Me 2 is not really about Gru trying to save the world from a threat (although he does that as well) it is more about Gru the single dad finding love. With minions. So many minions.

 

1 out of 4.

I have decided to have a theme week. Are you ready? Apocalypse Week. End of the world shit. You know. It seemed appropriate with the new movies coming out this week. In case you are curious in the future which movies are part of the week, I have tagged them all as Apocalypse Week as well as their normal tags.

This mostly came about because I finally had access to Rapture-Palooza and watched it a few days after seeing This Is The End. Similar theme? Heck yeah. It was pretty easy to find a few more to shoe-in too.

I’d like to get my shoe into Anna. Or something perverted/sexy. I am bad at this.

As already stated, this movie begins with the apocalypse! Yay! Lindsey (Anna Kendrick) and her boyfriend Ben (John Francis Daley, who you may remember from Freaks and Geeks) didn’t believe in any god figure, so they were left behind, along with most of their family. Well, their moms were set. Kind of. But that is it. So now they have to try to live life as if there was no fire and brimstone, because what else are they going to do?

Anyways, life is very different. We have wraiths running around to cause trouble, their neighbor (Thomas Lennon) came back as a zombie, but for whatever reason just wants to mow his line. There are meteors that fall from the sky, usually to ruin their day.

Hell, Ben’s dad (Rob Corddry) sold his soul to the devil. Satan, or as he likes to call himself The Beast (Craig Robinson) has taken up residence in Seattle, and is out to party. Rapture is basically over, hell on Earth has happened, and people are just trying to get by.

But then he spies poor little old Lindsey, and he wants her. He wants her hard. Not just because she is a virgin either. So he asks her out, knowing that if she says no, he will kill everyone she has ever loved. Well damn. Guess she has to go out with him. Not without working on a plan to kill/trap him for a thousand years first though!

Rob Heubel plays a security guard, and Ken Jeong plays…eh. I don’t want to tell you.

Basically every time they are together, you can hear Craig Robinson say graphic things to Anna Kendrick. Worth the admission price? Probably.

Craig Robinson may have saved this movie from being a total dud. Yes, it felt like he was just playing a very arrogant and cocky version of himself, but he really bombarded Anna Kendrick with some vile stuff, and she took it all like a champ.

Anna also served as our narrator and I found her voice and attitude great for the role, giving zero fucks about the world falling apart around her. I also enjoyed a few of the gags, including pot head Wraiths, and the part near the end with Ken Jeong…even if it made very little sense.

However, it wasn’t an amazing movie on its own. It is okay, decent, not horrible, just not amazing. I understand why it never hit theaters, it is just plain weird. Yes, I do like weird, but this is a different type of weird I’d say. Quirky maybe. It could have been a lot better, and shit, might have worked best as a TV show. I could see the whole movie being an entire season, not like 22 episodes, but a solid 10-12. Introducing new problems, and just kind of nonchalantly dealing with them and giving not a fuck in the world.

2 out of 4.

The Hangover series is a bit of an enigma. Here is why!

The original is about four men on a bachelor party in Las Vegas, where they all black out, one goes missing, and they have to retrace their steps through the wildest night of their lives before the wedding. So what’d the sequel do? The Hangover Part II gave us another wedding, another night of blacked our memories and regrets, but in Thailand. Like most sequels, in contained the same theme and a similar plot. After all, it is called The Hangover and is about being hungover, and it is not called “Some Guys Get Into Shenanigans!” I don’t know if people complained about the similarities between Die Hard and Die Hard 2.

But for whatever reason, audiences hated it and voiced their displeasure. Which is why we now have The Hangover Part III! (Trailer) Learning from their mistakes, we now have a movie about a few guys getting into shenanigans and no hangovers.

Classic elevator scenes are classic. Those sheets are suggestive as fuck.

A few years after Part II, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) is still a madman. He is off his medication and causing accidents, overly stressing his father (Jeffrey Tambor) and giving him a fatal heart attack.

Which is why his friends decide to give him an intervention. Doug (Justin Bartha), Stu (Ed Helms), and Phil (Bradley Cooper) convince him to drive down to the rehab center to get his life back on track! But along the way, they are hijacked by Marshall (John Goodman), a drug dealer and international criminal, who claims Chow (Ken Jeong) stole $21 Million in gold bars from him.

Of course the only person to be in contact with Chow since Thailand is Alan. So he kidnaps Doug, and they have three days to find Chow and his money, or Doug dies. Swell!

This film also brings back Mike Epps as “Black Doug”, Heather Graham as Jade, and introduces Melissa McCarthy as a pawn shop owner.

Yep, the whole gang is represented in this poster. Wait…

I think I am going to put this blame on the writers. In terms of plot, this Hangover actually tells a decent story. There is betrayal, redemption, and a group of guys that can’t fix their larger than life problems. But instead of focusing on the entire group, it is almost a if Stu and Phil get pushed out of the way for the Alan and Chow show.

Alan is an annoying character, which Zach G. tends to to play a lot (With mixed results). He is the type of character that is good for a comedy, but shouldn’t be the main focus. Chow was also a secondary character, but  it feels like he has more lines than even Stu, who in turn is just a punching bag for Alan this movie.

The writers intended this to be a redemption movie for Alan, and thus  gave him the leading role. After all, everyone else has settled down besides his character, so this is just his turn to settle to end the series. But it feels very forced. The film on the whole has less humor than the previous two, focusing more on the intense plot lines. In fact, the scaffolding scene from the trailer made me jump from my feet in fright. Not that the seriousness was a bad thing, but it is framed as a comedy and not an adventure/action film.

I know it is a strange thing to blame the writers yet talk highly of the plot.I wish they were able to have the same overall storyline, without cramming two (Arguably) secondary characters down our throat. It shouldn’t be hard to give Bradley Cooper or Ed Helms bigger roles in the film. They felt like replaceable cast members, which is unacceptable.

That being said, Part III wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t amazing either.

2 out of 4.

I am not going to harp about how Michael Bay is the worst guy since whatever. Yes, he did the Transformer movies, and fucking Pearl Harbor, and he is about to kill the Ninja Turtles, but he has some decent stuff. Like. Independence Day. I love Independence Day!

I am just saying, there is no reason for me to assume Pain & Gain will be bad. The trailer just makes it look…weird. And apparently a true story. Okay, yeah. Sure.

So far, Michael Bay is clearly experimenting with different light refraction techniques. He is growing!

1995. Miami, Florida. Danny Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) is the current main manager at Sun Gym, after serving a short sentence in prison for fraud. He promised his boss (Rob Corddry) that he would triple the membership and get the gym back on the map, and boy did he ever. Through some questionable means, but who cares when you got dat income.

He is great friends with Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie), another former criminal and bodybuilder. But they are both poor and tired of it. Tired of a bunch of assholes, like Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub) who are self made rich men, and think everyone else is a piece of shit. After all, Danny is a doer, not a donter (lessons he learned from Johnny Wu (Ken Jeong)).

Doers do, and so Danny had the simple plan. Kidnap Victor, torture him until he signs away everything and ruins his life completely, then kill him and live the life of luxury. Just need a third man. Like Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson). Paul just got out of prison, was a cokehead from NYC, but found Jesus and wants to turn his life around…but he also needs cash.

Simple plan, nothing can go wrong if they have enough can do attitude, muscles/fitness, and positive thinking! Yeahhh… Ed Harris plays a private investigator, and Bar Paly a stripper turned confidant.

Step 1: Identify self to kidnappers. Step 2: ???? Step 3: Profit

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. It is not cursing if you take 10 seconds to say it.

Hot damn, this film was awesome. And amazing! And abstract. Abstract? Yes. Totally. I wasn’t just looking for more A words.

Seriously, this film was definitely something special. Who thought Bay had it in him? I was laughing and cringing, often in secession. There is just so much ENERGY in this movie, I’d find it impossible to lost focus at all.

Dwayne Fucking Johnson, I don’t even know you anymore. He acted the fuck out of this film, and was 100% the best part. Not saying Mark Wahlberg wasn’t amazing (because fuck, he was!), he just had to compete with The Rock! The two of them were out of their minds the entire time filming this, and made their characters their bitches. That is the only way to describe it. Literally. No one else has tried. If they did, they used those words.

Just. Aggh! The true story itself is a fascinating one, which is also not as funny as the movie took it out to be. Check it out here, but be warned it is a long read (so…its like reading the book version?). I am not saying the movie made light of the events in the film, because very serious shit went down and they talked about a lot of it. Just still had a more comedic tone overall, while also splashing your face off with shock juice.

4 out of 4.

I originally had no intention of watching All About Steve this weekend. In fact, I had no intention of watching it anytime soon. I never felt like I’d be in the right mood.

But unfortunately, the movie I watched Friday night was so fantastic, I thought it wrong to give it a Saturday review, since more reviews are read during the week and not weekend. So, might have had a post midnight freak out to find and watch another movie. Hooray!

With that picture, I still have no idea what this is even about.

Mary Horowitz (Sandra Bullock) is, in a word, eccentric. She is almost like a walking encyclopedia, she knows pretty much everything, but has basically no filter. She will just keep talking and talking, regardless of who is actually listening. She also writers the crosswords for the local newspaper, not much of a career, and lives at home with her parents. Her parents! Who have also set her up on a blind date with a cameraman, Steve (Bradley Cooper).

Originally interested, he quickly realizes (minutes later) she doesn’t stop talking and also is afraid of her strong commitment talk quickly ends the date but halfassedly invites her to come out. So of course she does, she thinks it is true love!

Steve has to work with an egotistical asshole Hartman (Thomas Haden Church) who really wants to be an anchor, and they also brought along a network guy (Ken Jeong) to make sure no shenanigans occur.

But when Mary actually finds him? He freaks out. She is like a stalker! And she causes problems! A really nice and in love stalker, who doesn’t know her own level of socially unacceptable behavior. She even meets some nice hippie friends (Katy Mixon, DJ Qualls) who help her, well, stalk Steve. She may even turn out to be a hero!

A hero who really puts herself out there.

Whewww, this is definitely not what I was expecting. To give Sandra Bullock some credit, she has never acted like this in a movie before, to my knowledge. Technically I am not a Bullock expert, so I could be wrong. But wow was this portrayal something else.

I think the goal of the movie was to make the audience love her and help accept others who are different than you, but I think they did a poor job of showing it. A lot of the earlier funnier scenes in which people quickly give up on her and treat her like crap just made me feel sad, and never really laughed. I found her interesting as a character, but as a comedy they went just a weird way with it all.

I’d say watch it only if you want to see Bullock go way outside of her normal zone, but definitely not for an overall good movie or plot.

1 out of 4.

Hey look, an obviously bad movie in Vampires Suck. Looks like I can use the Q&A format again!

Truth talk.

Question 1: Oh gee willikers, is this another one of those Spoof movies? Does it just spoof Twilight, or is there at least some other things to look forward to?

Heck yes it is one of those spoof movies. Spoofing on Twilight also happens to be one of the easiest things to do. Seriously. I’ve tried to make fun of it three times myself, with at least one more coming soon. But don’t worry, if you don’t want to just rewatch the first two movies, but even stupider, there are also some other references to other things.

Like Gossip Girl, Buffy, Vampire Diaries, Alice in Wonderland, and Dear John. Pretty much stuff that “Teen girls” like, or at least vampire stuff. I am sure there is more stuff that I missed, but I don’t know all of the pop culture yet. Also, none of these references last more than a few seconds / quick scene, so after them it is just straight up Twilight stuff.

Question 2: The plot is just the first two twilight movies? Really? Do that thing where you explain the plot kind of anyways.

Certainly! All the characters you expect are in this movie. Jenn Proske plays Bella, and Diedrich Bader is her dad. Matt Lanter is Edward and Chris Riggi is Jacob. Also Ken Jeong plays random high up vampire guy. So yeah, the two people you might know are playing the least important roles.

Bella moves to Oregon, is all sad, likes the mysterious Edward kid, falls in love, turns out he can’t protect her, he runs away, falls for hairy Jacob, tries to kill her self (kind of but not really), makes Jacob all sad, tries to reveal himself to others, and she stops him. He turns her into a vampire, and bitches get crazy. So pretty much the first two movies. Also some villains in there. But just all of the scenes go from angsty to stupid.

Question 3: Well that doesn’t sound swell! Does the movie have any redeeming qualities?

Oh well. Erm. No. Not really. I guess it is good that they reduce the first two movies into one film, which is what I thought they could have done with the first 2 actual Twilight movies.

And that guy.

Question 4: I think you went in knowing this movie would be bad, and thus never gave it a chance. Shenanigans!

That’s not a question!

Question 5: Your mom’s not a question.

Alright, I get that the badly edited scenes and the jokes being inconsistent with the plot are on purpose, but holy crap. Why? Can’t they be wittier like the…well everything Mel Brooks has ever done?

0 out of 4.

The Hangover, critically, was one of the higher rated comedies by critics for a long time. So much that people would continue to compare all new comedies to it and think the other comedies are “lame” if they are too similar. I even heard someone say that Horrible Bosses was too similar to it, just because it had three male leads. What?

So does that mean people will hate The Hangover Part II, if it is too similar to the Hangover, despite the fact that as a sequel it should be similar?

Yes.

In the Hangover, four guys go to celebrate in Las Vegas for a bachelors party, and wake up the next morning, can’t remember anything (damn secret druggings!), and have lost the groom. Two days before the wedding. They have to use clues to try and figure out what they did the night before, to hopefully find their friend, and deal with all the other problems they caused.

In the Hangover part II, five guys are in Thailand to meet the brides family, accidentally end up celebrating all night (damn secret druggings!), wake up the next morning, one guy is back at the hotel, the brother of the bride is lost. They have to use clues to try and figure out what they did the night before, to hopefully find their friend, and deal with all the other problems they caused.

Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifanakis return in their post hangover and confused state, and also features a return cameo of Ken Jeong (obviously!). Also, this introduces Mason Lee, as Teddy, the brother of the bride.

I definitely think a second “hangover” movie should have a similar plot to the first. I don’t want the same cast in the same roles doing a different type of adventure. That wouldn’t be “Hangover” based! People wouldn’t complain that Nightmare On Elm Street 2 has the same-ish plot as the first one. So it should be able to fit those standards. But what is it as funny as the first one?

No.

Although I did find it amusing, it was definitely not as good as the first. It had more penises, that is for sure, but what else would you expect with transsexuals? It also introduced a monkey, which takes the place of a baby I guess. I did like that Ed Helms took more of a lead from Bradley Cooper, especially by the end, even though his world was crashing down all around him (being the groom this time). I think the beginning was believable enough for his character too, avoiding a bachelor party (bachelor brunch!) so nothing bad happens. But Thailand is too crazy for them.

As another random note, I was mad to not see Liam Neeson in the movie. After all, Mel Gibson was booted from a cameo role due to his controversies, Liam brought in. But because of re shooting, they had to redo that role again as a different guy for the tattoo artist.

So yeah. Its an okay movie on its own. I don’t think you really need the first, but the first helps. It definitely wasn’t as good, too much of the plot focused on getting the codes to get Teddy, I thought. Took away from more potential laughs that they could have had in Thailand.

2 out of 4.