Review: "Joy"

Director: David O. Russell
Runtime: 124 minutes

If you find it odd that Joy opens with voice over from the main character's grandmother, don't expect coherence or justification to follow. David O. Russell's new free-wheeling, rambunctious dramedy is a puzzler from start to finish, and not for the best reasons. Adapting the real-life story of Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano, Russell has applied the same energetic style that distinguished his last three films (The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and American Hustle). Yet all of the roving, dynamic camera-work and snappy music choices in Joy's 2 hour runtime are enough to give a sense of life or necessity to this rags-to-riches tale. 

That's not to say that Mangano's tale is undeserving of dramatization, but Russell's execution here doesn't do it justice. The loud, dysfunctional family that surrounds Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) feels like a watered down version of what Russell presented in both Silver Linings and The Fighter. Yelling and bickering take the place of actual character growth, as if enough familial sparring will eventually turn into quirkiness. 

And it might have, were it not for the flatness that permeates just about every performance from the ensemble. Russell has assembled a typically excellent, charismatic cast, but none of them seem terribly invested in the material. The actors glide through the dialogue as if waiting for inspiration to strike, yet it never does. At worst, everyone in Joy sounds just a bit, well, bored. Whatever your opinion on Russell's recent films, they have enough energy flowing through them to make them at least passable entertainment. Joy, however, moves along mostly on autopilot, despite the lively, in-your-face photography. 

Perhaps the lack of energy comes down to the cluttered, discordant nature of the story. Joy brings in characters and subplots, but the wider the film's scope becomes, the weaker its impact. The closest the film comes to evoking joy (or any other emotion) arrives in the midsection, when Mangano starts to plug the Miracle Mop on QVC. Whether cramming in a cameo from Joan Rivers (played by her daughter, Melissa), or showing Mangano's eventual triumph on live TV, the QVC scenes introduce a sense of coherence and purpose. 

But the drive that highlights the rise of the Miracle Mop empire is stranded in a film that never quite figures out where it's going or leading up to. Diane Ladd's voice pops up sporadically with eyeroll-worthy narration, trying to turn Joy's story into a late 20th century entrepreneurial fairy tale. But much of what transpires just happens for the sake of filling up time over the course of a plodding two hours. The worst example is when Joy's shut in of a mother (Virginia Madsen) strikes up a relationship with a repairman. It adds nothing to the narrative, and there's nothing in the material that makes the messiness of the subplot feel acceptable. Like most of the story in Joy, it's just sort of there. One great shot in the film involves Mangano confidently strutting down a street. Unlike his subject, Russell is unable to match Joy's single-minded confidence or swagger. 

Grade: C-

Review: "Serena"

Director: Susanne Bier
Runtime: 109 minutes

Even the brightest super-star duos stumble once and a while. That's exactly the case with Susanne Bier's long-delayed Serena, which strands A-listers/frequent co-stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in a jumbled, albeit sincerely made, attempt at old-school melodrama. Even fans of the two leads would be advised to steer clear of Bier's latest attempt to find success outside of her native Denmark. 

What's instantly clear about Serena is that, despite the strong credentials, just about everything rings hollow. Characters are established via stray lines of dialogue rather than meaningful conversations or actions, and the actors trudge through their material while sounding like they've never spoken a word of English until now. Set in Depression-era North Carolina, Serena is a romance and a tragedy set among the state's struggling timber industry. George Pemberton (Cooper) is doing his best to grow his business into an empire, while his new wife Serena (Lawrence) is coping with her inability to produce an heir. It's a set-up rich with dramatic potential, with Serena's quest for a male heir instantly calling to mind the not-so-merry wives of Henry VIII. Unfortunately, the beautifully shot trees are the least wooden subjects on display.

Cooper and Lawrence have proven themselves as talented, charismatic performers, but in Serena they are distressingly out of sync with their material and each other. George's first line of dialogue to Serena is an out-of-the-blue marriage proposal, and it's all downhill from there. For a while, Serena is more focused on George's battle against officials who want to stop his deforestation efforts to create a national park. Despite the grim faces and appropriately dusty period attire, the plot thread never takes hold. Parks and Recreation traversed similar narrative ground with greater heft, even with Leslie Knope's undeterred, sunny optimism. So, after about 45 minutes and one murder, Christopher Kyle's script (based on Ron Rash's novel) gets cold feet and shifts to the pregnancy drama. 

The traumas and tragedies that follow over the remaining hour are a mish-mash of cliches that aren't done any favors by Bier's handling of the tone, which switches between disinterested and dour at the tip of George's wide-brimmed hat. Cooper is stuck trying to pull off an unconvincing accent, while Lawrence conveys the poise required for the role while still being distractingly underage. As with American Hustle, there are pieces of a solid performance in Lawrence's work, but they require a level of maturity that can only come with time. Sometimes, screen presence just isn't enough.

As the dueling story lines awkwardly slug it out for dominance, Serena unravels at a tedious pace. Photography, costumes, and sets all hit their marks, capturing the period and setting without creating false glamor. But with an unwieldy plot barely propped up by the wet blanket chemistry of the leads, even the visuals start to seem phony by the end. Given the rumored re-shoots and re-edits of the film, perhaps there's a version of Serena that actually passes muster as a noble failure, or even a minor success. Yet, in it's current form, the romance lacks heat, and the tragedy lacks even an ounce of genuine pathos. Some movies, no matter how much sense they make on paper, just never find the spark required to create compelling drama. Here's hoping the next Cooper/Lawrence vehicle (David O. Russell's Joy, due by year's end) gets these two A-listers back on the right track.

Grade: D

Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy"

Director: James Gunn
Runtime: 121 minutes

Though there's not a pirate to be found in Guardians of the Galaxy (at least not of the Blackbeard variety), the word that kept popping up in my head during the credits was "swashbuckling." Without question the Marvel universe's cheekiest adventure to date, James Gunn's breezy adventure may go through the motions of plot, but it's rather winning when it comes to character dynamics. At once acknowledging its own silliness and genuinely caring about its rag-tag group of heroes, this comedic foray into space opera territory errs on the lighter side, for better and for worse (but mostly for better).

The film's whole feel is best summed up by the film's main character Peter Quill, as played by Parks and Recreation star Chris Pratt. He's slick, he looks the part, and he's got the whole roguishly handsome vibe going on, yet with just the right look in his eyes to let you know that things are never going to fall into outright despair. The film kicks off with young Quill's mother dying of cancer, yet barely a minute later he's abducted by a group of space rogues who train him to be an intergalactic thief. 

And it's on one seemingly routine, Indiana Jones-like mission that Quill's life takes its pivotal turn and gets the story proper going. After stealing a mysterious metal orb from an abandoned planet (and rocking out to the mix tape on his cassette tape player), Quill finds himself targeted by multiple forces. Among them are the fierce warrior/assassin Gamora (a bright green Zoe Saldana), who wants the orb for her boss, and two bounty hunters looking to collect the sizable claim on Quill's head. Those assassins are Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper) and Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), and they happen to be an anthropomorphic raccoon and tree, respectively. 

Of course, one thing leads to another, and everyone gets locked up in a floating space prison (as you do), falls in with fearsome warrior Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), and begrudgingly decides to work together. Turns out that orb is an ancient weapon, and Gamora's now former boss Ronan (Lee Pace) wants to use it to commit genocide. What happens next? Well, nothing terribly surprising, although that hardly ends up being a bad thing in this case.

Regarding plot and character, director Gunn and writer Nicole Perlman make no bones about the fact that they're creating a film designed to launch a franchise. So even though the "get the MacGuffin back from the villain" story largely goes through the motions, the pair compensate by placing focus on the mostly lighthearted bickering and bantering among the central quintet. This turns out to be a winning formula, as it's when the film is usually at its most purely enjoyable. Much of this also has to do with the nature of the characters. Rather than the usual Marvel demi gods and super humans, the Guardians are, for lack of better term, more down to Earth that your average heroes. They have their skills, but not to the point of being too different from the rest of their wild, dangerous universe. 

The main cast all have a great deal of fun with their light-as-a-feather material, and Gunn even finds ways to work in some genuinely emotional moments without going into the thornier emotional complexities. Pratt makes for an endearing leader of this band of outlaws, and proves to be a surprisingly capable leading man in both comedy and sci-fi/adventure. Saldana, now launching her third major sci-fi franchise (after Avatar and Star Trek) is as fierce as ever, and makes Gamora a suitably level-headed character without turning her into a spoil sport or a nag. And Bautista, though initially a little shaky, nicely grows into his role as the vengeful and literally-minded Drax.

The real heart of the movie, however, belongs to its two entirely digital characters. Cooper does an exceptional job voicing the wily Rocket, and helps punctuate the close encounters with po-faced dramatics with perfectly calibrated doses of sarcasm and humor. Diesel as Groot has less to work with (the character's only means of communication is to say "I am Groot"), yet he turns these repeated declarations into appropriately varied expressions of the character's emotions (and thankfully, Rocket, the Han Solo to his Chewbacca, is always on hand to translate). Both characters are also superbly rendered by the visual effects artists, which only lends extra heft to impeccable voice work from both actors.

Despite some hints at deeper trauma or sadness in these characters, the overall approach is to keep everything buoyant and in forward motion. Even with its cardboard cutout of a plot, Gunn keeps it all moving, and the film ends up feeling about 10 or 15 minutes shorter than its actual length (2 hours). So much happens, yet Guardians hardly feels like it's going along too quickly for its own good.

Gunn and his behind the scenes team have also knocked it out of the park on the visual front. Guardians hops all over the galaxy, and the art design of the all the locales feels distinct and lived-in. And, like the recent X-Men film, the overall color palette is both more vibrant and more sophisticated than almost all of the other Marvel-based films in the last decade. Guardians of the Galaxy clearly succeeds when it comes to tone, but it's also worth noting the truly sincere level of care that went into the art direction, costume design, make-up, and visual effects. Tyler Bates' grand, soaring score is a bonus on top of the slick technical accomplishments on display.

All of the above, including the winks at the audience, is more than enough to offset the well-handled, yet wholly recycled plot. Guardians does work as a self-contained adventure, but it's also designed to spawn sequels. Unlike The Amazing Spider-Man (or TASM 2), Guardians knows how to make its "origin story" click. The plot is there to make sure that things don't get stagnant, yet it's left to the characters coming together as a bizarre team and family that really matters. It's utterly frivolous entertainment, despite the hints at deeper, dark emotions, yet it also sets up a thoroughly engaging world that offers a quite literal universe to explore. This quality is what elevates Guardians of the Galaxy above other fun-but-disposable fare. It may not sink its hooks into you, but it ultimately proves to be infectious on multiple levels, and makes the wait for the next adventure (2017) feel far too long.

Grade: B/B-

Review: "American Hustle"

Director: David O. Russell
Runtime: 128 minutes

About halfway through David O. Russell's American Hustle, I suddenly realized why it all felt so vaguely familiar. Sure, the beginning had a bit of Goodfellas vibe with the tone of its voice-overs and flashbacks, but there was a second ingredient that evaded my grasp. And then it hit me: Ocean's 11. Like Soderbergh's film, Russell's latest feels like an excuse for a bunch of familiar players to get together and make a fun movie with a bunch of heinous, period-appropriate hairdos. Sure, the film is talked about as a possibly big Oscar contender, but it's really more of a laid back heist movie that just happens to have a diamond-studded ensemble. Combine the two aforementioned films and you have a rough approximation of what it's like to watch American Hustle. That is, without any of old-fashioned skill of Scorcese's mafia classic, or the effortless crowd-pleasing of Steven Soderbergh's caper remake. 

A fictionalized take on the FBI's ABSCAM sting operation in the late 70s, American Hustle opens with an attempt at cheekiness: a title card reading, "A lot of this probably happened." The film isn't out to take itself too seriously. Instead, it's content to pack a blandly appealing, toothless sense of humor in a stab at broad accessibility. That said, the title card is hardly an unforgivable sin. That's where the voice over comes in. Covering not one, not two, but three different characters, American Hustle's voice over is some of the most ill-conceived since the opening of The Descendants. The saving grace of the latter film is that after the first 15 minutes, George Clooney shut up. The three-pronged vocal assault here - from Christian Bale, Amy Adams, and Bradley Cooper - may not be constant, but it does pop up across the entire film, which spans a little more than two hours. 

Suffice it to say that the film's first quarter is easily its weakest. There's a lot of ground to cover, with everything from childhoods to personal motivations blasted through, all at the expense of a proper anchoring in the characters. We've got schlubby con man Irving Rosenfeld (Bale), his mistress Sydney Prosser (Adams), and Richie DiMaso (Cooper), the FBI agent who eventually manipulates the pair, all competing for our attention, which gets the film off to a jumbled start. Aside from an amusing opening bit with Irving arranging his labyrinthine combover, there's little to latch on to, seeing as so much information is simply being thrown our way.

But while we're on the subject of hair, it's worth noting that American Hustle does have a great deal of fun with with its characters' coiffures. Adams and Jennifer Lawrence (as Irving's alcoholic shut-in of a wife) are largely spared, save for when the former goes to a party with Janice Soprano hair, being the victims of follicular atrocities. The men are less fortunate. In addition to Bale's combover, there's also Cooper's hilariously tiny and tight set of curls, a nice externalizing of his finicky  tightly wound persona, and Jeremy Renner's bouffant, which may possess its own gravitational pull. 

Like some vicious bit of aesthetic justice, the men's looks are made to suffer, even as the women remain dressed up and lightly objectified (every other one of Adams' outfits bares quite a bit of skin). When Sydney compliments Richie on his perm, the moment comes across like a bit of meta commentary. She seems to find it attractive, but when she references the amount of effort he puts into such a 'do, it's difficult not to laugh.

It's the sort of humor that Russell has retained and broadened over the course of his last few films (including The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook). There are dramatic scenes here (the best of which belong to Adams, in wildly different scenarios), but American Hustle isn't out to plumb the depths of its characters and their morally grey world. It's all a bunch of star-powered razzle dazzle that only momentarily catches fire. It's a film caught between giving its actors room to play off of each other, while also trying to keep its plot moving forward, only without the level of detail that might have made for a more compelling narrative. 

So, as fun as it is to see these stars play dress up and spout moderately amusing dialogue, the film as a whole can't help but feel lacking. As a drama, it never has stakes necessary to generate tension (save for one last minute, and very fun, twist). As a caper-comedy, it's too removed from the specifics of its plot to feel like there's much of anything really going on. And, as a character study, it's far too thin. The hairstyles are, frankly, often more fun to pay attention to. And as much as Russell throws in dolly zooms on his actors' faces, American Hustle never truly takes flight the way his last two films did. The closest that American Hustle comes to capturing the fire of The Fighter or Silver Linings is in a brief bit of physical comedy involving Lawrence drunkenly singing along to the Bond theme "Live and Let Die." Unfortunately, like the movie as a whole, the moment is only superficially engaging, and ultimately superfluous, despite its best intentions.

Grade: C+

Review: "The Place Beyond the Pines"

Director: Derek Cianfrance
Runtime: 140 minutes

Bold, intimate, and raw. These three adjectives, among many others, were thrown at Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine when it opened to rave reviews in 2010. That film was a split look at the rise and fall of a romance and marriage, confined entirely to characters navigating the ups and downs of every day life. As such, when Blue Valentine worked, it delivered tremendously powerful, and often unsettling, moments that burst from the screen. The same three above-mentioned adjectives can also be used to describe Cianfrance's follow-up, The Place Beyond the Pines, with one new addition: ambitious. Unfortunately, it's that new adjective that leaves Pines falling short of its lofty goals. For all of its merits, Pines is ultimately more admirable for its ambition, rather than its execution. 

Split into three stories (each of which could, in a sense, be their own full-fledged films) linked by time, the film ultimately comes down to the relationships between fathers and sons. There's Luke (Ryan Gosling), a heavily tattooed, volatile motorcycle stuntman who learns that a former fling (Eva Mendes), has had his child. Meanwhile, fresh-faced cop Avery (Bradley Cooper) is doing his best to fight against corruption in the local police force, while also dealing with his own newborn son. Detailing how the story threads cross paths, and ultimately play out, would require quite of bit of plot spoiling. Suffice it to say that as time passes, and the film's scope widens, the plot becomes more and more dire for all involved. 

In fact, the evolution between and among stories (one of which involves a 15 year jump forward) is the most compelling aspect of the script, written by Cianfrance, along with Ben Coccio and Darius Marder. The ways in which actions, and the way we see them, echo across stories and time periods is often subtle, but lends the film a nice connective thread. Gosling is first introduced to us in a long tracking shot that follows him with his back turned to the camera. In the third part of the film, one of the first times we meet his high school-aged son Jason (Dane Dehaan), we also follow him as he keeps his back turned to us. It's a simple, but telling, bit of camera work that reinforces the idea that Luke (and therefore, any of his offspring) are outsiders, always moving forward and unable to sit still and settle down. Less clear is the titular place beyond the pines, which seems to be a vague manifestation of the place where bad decisions begin and/or play out. 

Cianfrance's ability to link the stories is critical, as the film runs for nearly two and a half hours. Though the first hour or so is more energetic (Luke gets into the bank-robbing business) than the remaining screen time, the energy never really flags. If anything, Cooper carries more of the film than Gosling does, despite both presences looming over the entire film. His story at first seems more mundane, but it actually has equally (perhaps more?) interesting emotional territory to mine. 

But as the film progresses, Cianfrance lets the widening scope of the material overwhelm him. Despite the nicely handled plot mechanics, Pines never achieves the emotional resonance that it clearly strives for. The most immediate comparison is last year's Cloud Atlas, a film which had to put so much effort into churning out its six stories coherently than it wasn't able to stick the landing on the emotional front. Even though all three sections of Pines are clearly linked on multiple levels, there's still the feeling that certain relationships aren't fully explored. A potentially gripping subplot involving Avery ratting out some dirty cops is glossed over (albeit elegantly) in order to get things moving forward.  

Emotional developments suffer from this approach as well. Part three introduces us to Avery's troubled son AJ (Emory Cohen), yet the film never attempts to even hint at how the son of an upstanding cop became such a boor. Cohen's performance in the role doesn't help matters, and often feels overwrought. He's not merely troubled or volatile. He's a straight-up bully who we have no reason to empathize with. Faring much better is Dehaan, who actually has an interesting emotional conflict (struggling to connect to a very distant father).

Even this arc, however, is undermined by the overblown conclusion that the film leads towards. When the film reaches what should be its emotional high point, it ends with more of a whimper than a bang. The energy of the storytelling can only paper the lack of true character development for so long, and by the time the ending rolls around, the film's facade comes crumbling down. The ingredients, however, are all in place for a unique, mesmerizing character drama. Performances are solid across the board, with Gosling, Cooper, Dehaan, and Mendes all getting at least one brief moment to shine with some excellent silent emoting. And cinematographer Sean Bobbitt lends the film a richly colored, gritty look, while composer Mike Patton's unconventional score creates a unique atmosphere out of ghostly choirs and piano chords. 

But the film has more energy than honest emotion. It's telling that the film's most compelling moment is a chase sequence (brilliantly shot in long takes from within a police car), and not the moments of emotional desperation in the final act. A side character played by Ben Mendelsohn (criminally underused) tells Luke that, "if you keep on riding like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder." Like Luke, The Place Beyond the Pines rides like lightning. When it crashes, however, it often sounds more like a hollow thud. 

Grade: C

AFI Fest Review: "Silver Linings Playbook"

Director: David O. Russell
Runtime: 122 minutes

Dissect the whole of David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook, and you'll find a bunch of individual pieces that belong in either an unbearably cheesy romantic comedy or a shoddy Lifetime movie. Put all of these pieces into O. Russell's hands as both writer and director, and thrown in an outstanding cast, and you have one of the year's best surprises. Though Playbook does at times let its rom-com cliches get the better of it, the film maintains a steady course that mixes indie sensibilities with broad emotional appeal. Following 2010's The Fighter, this is yet another more accessible film from the brash writer/director. And, thankfully, O. Russell has hit the sweet spot, even as he veers closer to lightweight territory.

Based on Matthew Quick's novel of the same name, Playbook is the sort of comedy/drama hybrid that knows how to deftly mix the light and the heavy emotional components with ease. Pat (Bradley Cooper), recently on leave from a mental institution after a violent breakdown, is struggling to readjust to life with his parents (Robert DeNiro and Jacki Weaver). Pat is convinced that, assuming he can find a way to prove that he has changed, he can win back his wife Nikki (Brea Bee). Along the way, he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), the sister-in-law of a close friend, who has had similar issues with mental health. Several awkward encounters later, Tiffany and Pat are working together to enter a couples' dance competition, which Pat hopes will prove his supposed newfound sense of discipline and emotional control. 

The buildup to the dance subplot, however, is where O. Russell and his actors succeed most. As in The Fighter, the family and friends that populate this film love each other, but also have their fair share of battle scars and hot tempers. Instead of mundane soap opera hysterics, however, we get scenes that, through turns funny and dramatic, keep the characters on an emotional high wire. So even though the comedy isn't likely to make you double over in hysteria, it comes from such a situational, organic place that the film never feels like it's straining for comedy to break up the drama. And, as loud as the characters can become, with anywhere from four to eight voices shouting over each other, the emotional fireworks have genuine heat to them. Whether Pat is ranting about his disdain for Ernest Hemingway, or awkwardly attempting to converse with Tiffany, O. Russell's sharp eye finds the truth in the characters, never letting them descend into caricatures (even Chris Tucker, which is saying something).

Much of this also comes down to the stellar work from the cast. Mr. Cooper, best known for the two Hangover films as well as Limitless, sheds his typical smug swagger and digs deep into Pat. It's both a leading man turn and a work of striking character detailing that should, hopefully allow Cooper to start unlocking his potential as a performer. Whether he's manic, angry, or blatantly disregarding normal social skills, Pat comes through so clearly as a character that his sharp shifts in mood never feel strained or contrived. The same can be said for Lawrence, who, whether by herself or interacting with Pat, feels so much like a fully-drawn person that she avoids becoming a gritty version of a manic pixie dream girl. Watching the two interact together, both troubled, both overcoming different losses, is the film's highlight. Some developments in the plot may feel a little rushed (the dance training basically consists of one montage), but the two central performances keep everything so wonderfully grounded that it only becomes apparent once the lights go up and the credits roll.

With so much excellent ground work in regards to the characters, the film carries a tremendous energy through, never flagging even as it hits a handful of predictable notes in the final act. So much of Pat and Tiffany's relationship has such an in-the-moment back and forth that the last minute moments of "will they or won't they" tension can't help but feel like a desperate appeal for broad appeal. No such appeal is necessary, as the characters, warts and all, prove so lively and engaging on multiple levels. Yet, perhaps inevitably, the more banal rom-com pieces of the puzzle eventually rear their bland heads. As such, the film ends too neatly. Like The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook moves along with excellent emotional edginess its entire way through, only to conclude on an unitive ending that matches the story in tone, yet still feels out of place. It's as if, in the final minutes, O. Russell forgot to suppress the aspects of the film that rob it of its otherwise distinct status among romantic comedies. 

Grade: B+

Review: "The Hangover Part II"

It opens with an exasperated phone call. An exhausted and grimy-looking man named Phil (Bradley Cooper), contacts the bride of his friend Doug (Justin Bartha), to let her know that things have gone horribly wrong. The many who have seen 2009's The Hangover know this as the opening scene. The many who have yet to see the sequel likely don't know that I've also just described the opening of Part II.

For better or for worse, Todd Phillips' sequel to his '09 blockbuster could almost pass as a remake, considering how similar it is. Just as Baz Lurhmann relocated Romeo and Juliet to California, Phillips has relocated The Hangover to Bangkok, only with the same actors, and only 2 years later. The result is not necessarily a cash-grab. It has funny moments amidst the carbon-copy set-up and structure. It just makes you wonder why they bothered to essentially make the same movie over again, only with minor differences and set in an even seedier locale.

Not that there aren't some minor changes in the details. This time Stu (Ed Helms) is the one getting married, and the missing person isn't Doug, but the 16-year-old brother of the bride-to-be (Mason Lee). Come to think of it, Mr. Bartha's presence in the movie feels almost unnecessary, as he's not among those suffering from a disastrous hangover. The character who was once the object of a frenzied search has been relegated to the role played by his wife, receiving calls and asking "what happened?" Meanwhile, the original wolf pack of Phil, Stu, and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) goes through roughly the same routine as last time. They wake up disoriented, in a trashed room (although the inherently crappier room lessens the effect of any damage the characters caused). Instead of a missing tooth, Stu now has a tattoo which he doesn't remember getting, Alan's head is shaved, there's a vest-wearing monkey hanging around, and there's a finger in a bowl of melted ice. Phil just looks worn out, which I'm assuming is part of Cooper's secret contract wherein it states that he must always look attractive on screen.

As the trio traverse Bangkok and begin piecing another wild and crazy night back together, the film's reliance on formula rears its ugly head. It doesn't sink the film, but it robs it of the pseudo-mystery fun of the first. We now know to expect insane, outrageous happenings. So while some of the surprises may top the original in shock-value, the overall impact is muted. Still, the character interactions do produce some funny moments. Galifianakis' oddball antics generally prove to be a highlight, while Helms' freak-outs are perfectly pitched moments of exasperated hysteria ("All I wanted was a bachelor brunch!!!"). There's also Ken Jeong, reprising his role as the gangster Chow, earning solid laughs throughout. Cooper is generally there to be pissed off, rarely given anything actually funny to say or do. As far as "straight men" characters go, there's little that's interesting to him, especially considering what a sleazy jerk he can be. It's the sort of role that I suppose formula demands, but here in particular, it feels noticeable that most of what Cooper says is usually vulgar, without inspiring many laughs (not so for his co-stars).

General reaction to The Hangover Part II has been negative, and in some ways it's easy to see why. Phillips and co. have essentially remade the first movie, only without having to establish as many characters. Taken on its own, Part II probably seems much funnier. Under the shadow of the original, however, it's all a little too familiar, even though it's often amusing and occasionally hilarious. The decision to repeat the formula of the first film does not wreck this sequel. It merely renders its goal - to be a shock and awe campaign of what-just-happened comedy - somewhat diluted.

Grade: C+