(THIS IS A REQUESTED REVIEW)

“Next week’s no good for me. The Jonas Brothers are in town.”
That’s just an example of the many one liners that will come out of this outrageous comedy! I’m not sure what many might expect from this film, since it’s coming from the same guys that brought you Old School, but if you liked that movie then you are sure to like this one as well. I will say this – just for the record Old School is a better comedy (as far as laugh counts) but I think that this is a better “buddy” movie. Don’t really know if that matters on your scale if you’d like the Hangover or not – but just thought I’d throw it out there.

SYNOPSIS:
Three guys take said bachelor to Las Vegas for his bachelor party. (2 days mind you before the actual wedding – which is just a stupid idea in of itself) They wake up the following morning  and have no idea where the Groom is or what transpired the night before. The rest of the movie plays out as they unravel the mystery of the prior evening to try and find their friend.

PROS of the FILM:
For me the best part about this movie was the use of non “big-name” actors to pull the weight of the comedy. With movies like Old School you had two stars to pull the majority of the weight – Will Ferrel and Vince Vaughn. Now granted those two actors got even bigger after Old School but they both already had impressive resumes where as the 3 actors in the Hangover are not so well known.

For example we’ve got (for me, the funniest man in the movie) Alan, the groom’s brother-in-law-to-be played by Zach Galifianakis. Now without looking at IMDB or Googling this guy, I’d bet you can’t name a damn thing that he’s done for film much less television. I’d be impressed if you could. Though without being a “star” to the silver screen he definitely gives it his all in this performance. He certainly stole the show from everyone else in the movie and was the best comedic element throughout the entire film.

Then we look at the character Stu Price played by Ed Helms. Another would be star in the making … though with him you might recoginze from television. He has been on the Daily Show with John Stewart more than a few times and has also been a part of other films in very small meaningless roles. He plays the “well-rounded” “level headed” figure of the bunch who aparently being a Dentist has paid off because he practically pays for everything that they do in the movie.

Lastly we have the “leader of the pack” character Phil played by Bradley Cooper. Now we’ve all already seen Bradley in a couple movies such as, The Wedding Crashers, He’s Just Not That Into You (which I regretably watched last night), and the Comebacks. Mainly we all recognize him from the Wedding Crashers as the insane fiance’. For me I think that he wasn’t given the chance to really stretch his comedic effort as much as I would’ve liked to see but he still pulled off a pretty good performance overall.

Other Pros to this film include the somewhat original story, well not the Vegas bachelor party bit, or the whole hangover bit, but rather the part of the story where they lose their friend and go on this wild trip to figure out what happened and to get him back. That’s somewhat original right? Ok, well if not that – then I would have to say that a great part to this movie is all the situations that the 3 seem to get themselves into. (aka: the Mr. Chow scene – you’ll understand once you see the movie – I mean come on, if you can’t find a naked Chinese man’s forest bush funny then you’ve seriously got something wrong with you)

And FUNNY is by far one of the most important ingredients in a comedy is it not? This movie is funny – and I’d even say that it’s funnier than Wedding Crashers – strictly because this films comedic effort doesn’t slow down – it’s pretty much funny the whole entire length of the movie. Where as in Wedding Crashers, it seems as if the comedy stops when it’s a battle for the girl’s affection – and well that just sucks! Don’t slow down the comedy – kick that shit up a notch!

CONS of the FILM:
So I’ve been reading a lot of what the other’s (and by other’s I mean those people that consider themselves movie critics – pssh) but they’ve been saying a huge Con of this film is that you’ve seen too much from the trailers and the advertising. Now I will admit that there are some scenes that have been given away – but I’m not sure that there were any that were the major funny parts of the film for me. Even a scene that you see in the trailer (cough – electric shock to the face scene – cough) isn’t the best part of that scene … just watch and you’ll understand. I guess if I were to comment on the advertising stealing the show, I’d say that it’s not near as bad as other films have done in the past but it does give away a few things – especially the Mike Tyson cameo where he punches the character Alan. Trust me – if you watch TV then you’ve seen that already.

I would also point out that it’s hard to follow how they got from point A to point B … I don’t really want to give away anything – but sometimes I think that the director just took some twists and turns and didn’t quite explain how things were thought out just to keep the story moving. This is a minor detail mind you, because you honestly should be laughing and not really caring about those things in a movie like this.

I was also a little disapointed with the way they ended the film. Not really the ending so much but using pictures to tell the rest of the story rather than having that “extra” footage that people stay after a movie’s credits to watch. To me that would’ve been better than the way they did it – but I digress.

SUMMARY:
Well if you haven’t guessed it – the movie is funny. There are some really good gut busting funny moments, and some fairly funny moments. Tie in a somewhat original plot and some not-so-famous stars and you get a pretty solid comedy if you ask me. Oh, and after the final tally from the weekend box office – it actually earned more than Disney/Pixar’s Up. So that to me says that a lot of people in America found it funny too.

FINAL MOVIE RATING: 8.5/10