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| Someone has finally dared to make a mainstream American comedy in which nothing funny happens. |
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| (Adam Sternbergh, New York Times) |
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| Terrible... shockingly inept retread... With Hangover Part II, the worldwide downturn in dude comedy hits its nadir. |
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| (Andrew O’Hehir, Salon) |
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| Is this some kind of a test? The Hangover, Part II plays like a challenge to the audience's capacity for raunchiness. It gets laughs, but some of them are in disbelief. As if making sure no one was not offended, it has a montage of still photos over the closing titles that include one cruel shot that director Todd Phillips should never, ever have used. The MPAA's elaboration of the film's R rating says the movie has "pervasive language, strong sexual content including graphic nudity, drug use and brief violent images." Also other stuff. Maybe their space was limited. |
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| (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) |
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| Unless moviegoers themselves are willing to shoulder some of the blame, it's useless to try and figure out why The Hangover Part II is so bad. |
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| (Leonard Maltin, Leonard Maltin's Picks) |
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| Part II is everything the first movie was, and less. It's crucially missing laughs and intelligence. |
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| (Peter Howell, Toronto Star) |
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| The cast and crew members of this sequel who balked at the idea of Mel Gibson doing a comic cameo herein really had a lot of nerve, I must say. Because, honestly, although a movie can't commit actual physical assault on a viewer, aside from that, what The Hangover Part II ultimately stands for is only marginally less hateful than a good amount of the vitriol that Gibson's been caught spewing. Because it's not all that much of a stretch to see this film, like its predecessor, as a sour and ostensibly humorous fable of white male privilege withheld and then regained, and this film does an even worse job of disguising its resentment over the withholding part than the first one did. I imagine that it sounds as if I'm overthinking this raucous male-centric comedy. You're free to blame me. I myself blame the comedy, which sacrifices plausibility, believability and empathy with anything that doesn't validate its lead characters' "Wolf Pack" mentality in the service of a smirkingly cynical attitude... During Part II it's easy to get the idea that the filmmakers actually don't find Alan particularly infuriating... As obnoxious and petulant and socially stunted as he is, the movie actually takes his side. As in, What's the deal with Stu's rich, stuck-up future father-in-law and his idea that Stu has all the qualities of weak rice in milky water? Don't they all get that Alan and company are going to get what they want, because he and his "Wolf Pack" are entitled to it, and also, because, damn it, Alan's dad's got money too? This is ultimately what The Hangover Part II wants its audience to cheer for. |
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| (Glen Kenny, msnmovies.com) |
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| When you run out of ideas, what's next? Apparently, The Hangover crew decided to go for the sick and twisted. This isn't a fun night of frat boy bachelor shenanigans like stealing Mike Tyson's tiger or participating in a quickie wedding at a Las Vegas strip mall chapel. The Hangover 2 is darkly assaulting, vile and absolutely unlikeable. Forced and offensive, the filmmakers push the R-rated envelope and cross the line of what's appropriate with way too many scenes that may play fine to the college crowd, but will have mainstream audiences (warning: this is not a good date night movie) checking their watches and seriously pondering heading for the door. |
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| (Michelle Solomon, wsbtv.com) |
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| The writers don’t seem to care. You shouldn’t either. |
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| (Loron Hays, Reel Reviews) |
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| It’s as if the filmmakers were hungover from the first film and wanted to make a violent action movie instead. This is the same thing that happened to the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, which quickly turned into something more suitable for Sly Stallone than Eddie Murphy. I realize that it’s beside the point to take seriously anything that happens in The Hangover Part II. Still, I can’t dismiss the ugliness behind many of its antics. Teddy, for example, is touted as a promising classical cellist and future surgeon. Why is his losing a finger supposed to be such a laugh riot? I guess you had to be there. But really, dear moviegoers, you don’t have to be at theaters playing this movie. |
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| (Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor) |
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| One of the most uninspired and unoriginal sequels you'll ever see. Or not see, if you're lucky. |
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| (Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com) |
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| Somebody must have roofied me. I left The Hangover Part II feeling dazed and abused, wondering how bad things happened to such a good comedy. To paraphrase Ken Jeong's memorably bug-fuck mobster, Mr. Chow, "I want answers, bitches." How could a 2009 raunchfest that slapped a grin on my face I couldn't unglue degenerate into a cold dish of sloppy seconds? |
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| (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone) |
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| There are a lot of things to dislike about this derivative sequel, but at the top of the list is its appalling vulgarity, which crossed the line the first avoided. |
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| (Tony Medley, Tolucan Times) |
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| What the hell happened? Wouldn’t you like to know. But The Hangover Part II makes it hard to care. The answer involves a cokehead low-life (played, once again, by Ken Jeong), a sly gangster (Paul Giamatti, in a small role), libidinous she-males, and assorted drug-dealing baddies. Meanwhile, Stu is in danger of missing his own wedding, but of course that’s incidental: No one really cares. |
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| (Stephanie Zacharek, Movieline) |
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| While a lot of us — myself included — had great fun with the original Hangover two years ago, director Todd Phillips seems to be relying all too heavily on the idea that we just want to see the first movie again. We can do that. At home. For a lot less money. |
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| (Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times) |
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| Basically, if you want to avoid spoilers for The Hangover Part II, don’t watch The Hangover. |
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| (Eric D. Snider, Film.com) |
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| The Hangover is essentially made to entertain children (of all ages) with the vices of irresponsibility. Alan’s infantile behavior (“When a monkey nibbles on a penis, it’s funny in any language”) expresses a puerile, selfabsorbed, pleasure-centered sensibility. Man’s-man Phil explains the type: “I’ve done so much fucked-up shit. You just forget about it; it goes away.” His oblivious attitude — not remembering anything he’s done — reflects the millennium’s New Denial, a post-Vietnam, post-Iraq attitude. Coming from swaggering Phil, it represents more than cultural or sociopolitical regret; it’s a desire for oblivion. Yet, it’s whiney-voiced Alan/ Galifianakis who is the breakout boor of The Hangover movies... Galifianakis is the embodiment of everything wrong with our dominant culture: slack, infantile and unsympathetic. |
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| (Armond White, New York Press) |
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| Wastrels think the formula for a hangover is the hair of the dog, but this flaccid follow-up to the hit comedy expects us to swallow the entire rotting carcass. For such a brazen act of counterfeiting, writer and director Todd Phillips belongs in a Thai prison. |
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| (Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch) |
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| For the most part, the movie is just poor-to-middling - occasional, small laughs, but little audience engagement and no surprises - but things get much worse during the final fifteen minutes. Stu magically figures out where Teddy is, they go back and rescue him, the guys find a speedboat which they let Alan drive, and they crash on to the shore, nearly killing the wedding guests. Helms gets out of the boat and starts shouting at his future father-in-law about how he (Stu) is the fucking man for rescuing Teddy and for losing him in the first place, how he’s the fucking man for hanging out with people who habitually destroy his life, and how he’s the fucking man for taking his daughter away from him so he can ruin her life, too. Instead of beating him to death like any reasonable person, the father-in-law walks up to him and shakes his fucking hand. Meanwhile, his fiance just looks on, smiling vaguely as if everything is fine. The wedding goes on, much to everyone’s relief and delight, the couple live happily ever after and everything is fine. Everything is fine. EVERYTHING IS FINE... I suppose it’s fitting that a series about people doing awful things and getting off lightly should have convicted rapist Michael Tyson as its mascot. Horrible, but fitting. The series seems intent on taking the worst elements of modern masculinity and presenting them not just as acceptable, but expected and universally lauded virtues. Sort of like a reverse Sex and the City, really. And even if you’re not bother by that - either because you’re a douchebag, a moron, or both - all you’ll get from this movie is a few minor chuckles and a cute monkey. Not much of a return for invested time and money, is it? |
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| (The Infallible Mr Jessop) |
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| The first Hangover is one of my favorite comedies of this decade, still watchably anarchic any time you turn it on. Its sequel made me sort of hate it, to distrust the creative mindset that allowed both it and this to exist. If you love the first film, seriously, do not see this one. You’ll ruin two movies at once. |
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| (Will Leitch, Yahoo! Movies) |
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| Oh, what a headache-inducing, unapologetic money grab we have in The Hangover Part II. By the time Bradley Cooper's Phil says, "You know the drill," and the guys start emptying their pockets in search of clues to the latest debacle, you'll be more inclined to groan than giggle. |
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| (Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times) |
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| Did I laugh? A handful of times. Did I cringe? For 101 minutes. |
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| (Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer) |
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| It's clear that Phillips is betting heavily on funnymen Jeong and Galifianakis to hide his creative bankruptcy. |
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| (Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch) |
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| A severe bout of sequelitis afflicts this eagerly awaited but only sporadically amusing follow-up. |
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| (Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald) |
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| This isn't even really a sequel to the hilarious 2009 comedy smash set in Las Vegas. It's virtually the same movie, just transferred to another continent and with the raunch wildly amped up. |
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| (Randy Cordova, Arizona Republic) |
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| I found this more elaborate, play-it-safe sequel far less fresh or funny. |
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| (Lou Lumenick, New York Post) |
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| Has a "been there, done that, jailed for it" feel. |
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| (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) |
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| The Hangover Part II offers absolutely nothing new to fans of the first film. In fact, once the comfort of familiarity has worn off, they may well feel as baited-and-switched as the patrons of one of the sketchier clubs the boys visit. |
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| (Ann Hornaday, Washington Post) |
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| It's hard to imagine a more calculating, creatively bankrupt piece of real estate than The Hangover Part II. |
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| (Eric Hynes, Village Voice) |
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| Largely mirthless... If you superimposed a diagram that mapped out all the narrative beats, characters and jokes in The Hangover Part II over one for The Hangover, the two would align almost perfectly. Banking on the studio adage that there’s no success like a previous box office hit, Mr. Phillips and company dutifully recycle the first movie to increasingly diminishing ends that include the baby-now-monkey, the giggly, swishy gangster Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) and the obligatory, obliging anti-wives (i.e., whores). Paul Giamatti shows up, as do Jeffrey Tambor, Mike Tyson, the director Nick Cassavetes and assorted extras filling in for monks, gangsters, strippers, merchants and gawkers. There’s a car chase, and at one point the monkey takes a computer-generated smoke, doubtless to take its mind off the movie. |
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| (Manohla Dargis, New York Times) |
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| 'The first one made a lot of money!' shouldn't be the only reason to make a sequel |
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| (Geoff Berkshire, Metromix, Tampa Bay) |
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| The lads in the Hangover “wolfpack” seem a tad winded, this time around. From concept to execution, Hangover Part II has a “been there, done that, jailed for it” feel. |
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| (Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel) |
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| As inspired as an IRS tax form... Alan - as inappropriate as ever - comes off as disturbed rather than weird... There's no disguising that this is just warmed-up leftovers that will leave a nasty taste in your mouth. |
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| (Randy Myers, Contra Costa Times) |
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| The price for an invite to Stu's (Ed Helms) Thai nuptials is fewer laughs and an air of menace and mystery that won't endear Part II to escapist-hungry audiences. |
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| (John P. McCarthy, Boxoffice Magazine) |
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| The stock dismissal "more of the same" has rarely been more accurately applied to a sequel than to The Hangover Part II, which ranks as little more than a faded copy of its predecessor superimposed on a more brightly colored background... The rote professionalism on display verges on cynicism, and despite some occasional sparks, this ranks as a considerable disappointment. |
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| (Andrew Barker, Variety) |
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| It's hard to imagine a more half-assed attempt at cashing in a second time... Giving the people what they want is one thing. Making nearly the exact same movie a second time, but shifting the setting to Thailand, is just... what, lazy? Arrogant? Maybe a combination of the two. |
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| (Christy Lemire, Associated Press) |
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| Can't justify essentially reenacting, beat for beat, the plot of its predecessor. |
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| (Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly) |
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| So closely mirrors its blockbuster predecessor in every vital aspect that it can scarcely claim to call itself a sequel. |
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| (Thomas Leupp, Hollywood.com) |
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| A soulless and badly unfunny retread of everything that worked the first time. |
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| (Katey Rich, CinemaBlend.com) |
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| A huge disappointment. Not funny. |
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| (Victoria Alexander, FilmsInReview.com) |
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| Part II is just plain not funny. |
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| (Harvey S. Karten, Compuserve) |
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| The movie's an unclean thing and a mostly unfunny one. |
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| (Ty Burr, Boston Globe) |
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| In this world of give-'em-what-they-want, the team behind the 2009 comedy hit has reconvened to try and do just that. Too bad it doesn't work. |
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| (Joanna Langfield, The Movie Minute) |
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| The real problem is the script, which labours under the misapprehension that in order to be funny, and in order to function as a whip-smart sequel to a comedy about depravity, you need to (a) be more depraved, and (b) you need to be 'gritty'. But with The Hangover: Part II, the depravity is handled humourlessly (there are exceptions, obviously, but they're too few to mention), and the film is genuinely so gritty that for about twenty minutes, I thought I was watching a really decent crime thriller about amnesia and loss in the heart of an unforgiving Bangkok. It's at times nightmarish, and not in an ironic way... The first film wasn't a work of art, but it was surprisingly funny, and you were left with a sense of completion; it was a buddy movie. Whereas The Hangover: Part II feels more like a Bangkok tourism project pitched at rapey frat boys. |
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| (Paul Verhoeven, The Vine) |
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| More of a vulgar assault than an attempt at actual comedy. I guess this shouldn't come as much of a surprise considering the original Hangover screenwriters, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, had nothing to do with this film as director Todd Phillips, Scot Armstrong and Craig Mazin stepped in to collaborate. So I guess this is what you get when the people who collectively wrote Due Date, School for Scoundrels, The Heartbreak Kid, Scary Movie 3, Scary Movie 4 and Superhero Movie team up on a screenplay, a mean-spirited copy of another film attempting to pass itself off as funny. The Hangover Part II is a tired retread that bludgeons its audience rather than invites them into the fun. The first film had charm to go along with its raunchier bits, this one has none of that. This is the Transformers 2 of comedy sequels where the mindset was "bigger is better" and they couldn't have been more wrong. |
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| (Brad Brevet, Rope of Silicon) |
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| I can't believe how precisely everything does happen again, except that what was fresh and surprising in Las Vegas turns rancid and predictable in Bangkok, where yet another wedding is scheduled to take place. |
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| (Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal) |
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| The sequel turns not dark but revoltingly cruel. |
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| (Lawrence Toppman. Charlotte Observer) |
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| As the film goes on its dull, dim-brained, slapdash way, there isn't a solitary laugh in sight. Not one. A person couldn't write worse jokes if he or she tried. |
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| (Dustin Putman, DustinPutman.com) |
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| You already paid for and saw this film two years ago. Though, the version you saw then was a thousand times better. Beyond disappointing! |
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| (Kevin McCarthy, BDK Reviews) |
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| The equivalent of a drunk college student waking up the morning their book report is due and desperately trying to remember what they saw in the crappy movie version. |
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| (Erik Childress, eFilmCritic.com) |
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| This is the worst kind of sequel: the kind that simply remakes the first film, offering only recycled jokes and characters who refuse to change for fear of disrupting the comedy dynamic. It’s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York but with penises, and that’s a very, very bad thing... It’s a pretty insulting movie, not in the way it intended, and should not be praised even if, once in a while, it actually makes you laugh. |
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| (William Bibbiani, Crave Online) |
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| It’s just not funny. Whereas the first time around we got gags that were thoughtful and original, here, the writers seem desperate resorting to more grotesque humor that’s got no chance at having as wide of an appeal. |
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| (Perri Nemiroff, shockya.com) |
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| What a massive let down... Like most hangovers, I was happy when this one was over, and hope to avoid experiencing another one as bad as this. |
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| (Tom Santilli, Detroit Movie Examiner) |
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| A lazy excrescence. |
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| (Andrea Chase, Killer Movie Reviews) |
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| Movies can reshape our imagination, bring us to tears, render us lovesick, break our psyches, shock and horrify us, or draw out an emotional catharsis. The great power of film is its ability to inspire, to elicit laughter, to provoke thought, or to enable us to appreciate what we have or what’s been lost. The great power of The Hangover II, on the other hand, is its immense ability to make us feel as though we’ve been robbed, ripped off, stolen from, sold a bill of goods, knocked out, anally violated and left for dead. It’s not even that The Hangover II is a bad film; it’s that it’s a film we’ve already fucking seen. |
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| (Dustin Rowles, Pajiba.com) |
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| A film that made me angry — not because it's offensive, which it manages to be on numerous occasions — but because I went in expecting to laugh hard, catching breaths between jokes like I did with The Hangover. No such luck here, as Part II is merely nebulous memories of the night before, with the nauseating reality of the morning after. |
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| (Greg Vellante. Eagle Tribune) |
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| A film that's meant to be riotous and crazy, but feels boring, tired and unpleasant. The characters are grating, the jokes fall flat and the cinematography will make audiences feel like they have dengue fever |
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| (Chris Williams, Advisor and Source, Michigan) |
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| It just might be the worst sequel ever to a really good movie. |
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| (Michael Smith, Tulsa World) |
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| Adheres to the old maxim "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," yet somehow manages to break it while not fixing it. |
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| (Mike McGranaghan, Aisle Seat) |
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| Prepare to be seriously underwhelmed. |
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| (Rajeev Masand, IBNLive, India) |
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| The jokes are tacky, limp and just plain icky. I don’t think Bangkok will recover from this for a long time. |
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| (Anupama Chopra, NDTV, India) |
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| The Hangover Part II may not be the worst film ever made, but it surely ranks among the sorriest sequels. |
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| (Tom Charity, CNN) |
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| The Hangover Part II is what the label says: another day in which you sit there with blurred vision and a headache wondering how you came to be in the same room as several dozen other people debauched by Hollywood. |
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| (Nigel Andrews, Financial Times) |
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| A film that seems to have been written mainly with the find and replace function on Microsoft Word. |
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| (Robbie Collin, News of the World) |
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| The script’s homophobia and racial stereotyping leave a sour aftertaste. |
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| (Nigel Floyd, Time Out) |
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| This is a lazily written, frequently dull and painfully laugh-free sequel that fails to capture the magic of the first film. |
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| (Matthew Turner, ViewLondon) |
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| Please, let The Hangover be over. |
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| (Nicholas Barber, Independent on Sunday) |
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| Proving that 2009's The Hangover was a fluke, this sequel returns to filmmaker Todd Phillips' more usual mean-spirited style, abandoning laughs for a series of painfully awkward scenarios held together by a contrived plot... The first movie wasn't exactly a masterwork, but at least the absurd mayhem was hilarious. This one, on the other hand, only makes us wonder why we found that film so funny. |
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| (Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall) |
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| It's not a sequel, closer to a shot-for-shot remake. This time, the guys go to Thailand for a wedding, in the same shark-jumping way that the Sex and the City girls whooshed off to Abu Dhabi for their profoundly depressing sequel. It feels a bit like a feature-length Christmas special of a well-loved British sitcom... It's a sobering experience. |
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| (Peter Bradshaw, Guardian) |
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| The Hangover franchise is simply a cinematic substitute for, and endorsement of, stag night package tours, dimly affirming that getting really wasted, going to prostitutes, stealing things and self-harming for a bet is the great break-out in life, much to be admired. These are films that connect with people who post snaps of themselves gooning on Facebook and feel enhanced. They're both ugly and this one's not funny at all. |
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| (Derek Malcolm, Evening Standard) |
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| Best watched drunk - that way you might awake with no memory of the experience. |
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| (David Edwards, Mirror) |
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| Heaven knows how Jon Lucas and Scott Moore pulled off the original script – their careers gave no indication of greatness in waiting. Second time around the writing team comprises Craig Mazin, Scot Armstrong and the director, Todd Phillips, and the strangest aspect is that they seem quite clueless about the things that made the first one comedy gold. |
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| (Anthony Quinn, Independent) |
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| If The Hangover gave you hope for Hollywood – yup, there is some creativity and boldness left – The Hangover Part II sinks it. It is the movie equivalent of the morning after the night before: the fun, hi-jinks and exuberance replaced by a sinking feeling, over-powering sense of regret and horrible queasiness. |
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| (Henry Fitzherbert, Sunday Express) |
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| Almost humourless... The penis jokes are flaccid, the story moves like toxic sludge and there’s an undercurrent of racism. |
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| (Kate Muir, Times) |
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| Its cast of characters is so singularly charmless. Alan is a petulant man who still lives with his parents and has the mental outlook of a psychopathic child; Phil is a handsome, humourless husk; and Stu is a dullard who believes that his drunken follies somehow add up to a booster shot of masculinity... Welcome to lad-land, where happiness means never having to say you’re sorry. |
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| (Jenny McCartney, Sunday Telegraph) |
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| Less attractive and far less amusing. |
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| (Philip French, Observer) |
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| Dumb, crude and unfunny... Cruises on a series of crude gags and repulsive cartoon characters. |
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| (Cosmo Landesman, Sunday Times) |
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| Tasteless, pointless, tactless and pretty much anything else you care to stick the ‘-less’ suffix on.... Hangover 2 is shit, and if you like it so are you. |
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| (Charlie Lyne, Ultra Culture) |
, Ed Helms 
