“The Hangover Part II” May Be Rote and Pointless, But At Least It’s Less Homophobic Than You’d Think

Ed Helms, Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover Part II

“I can’t believe this is happening again!” screams buttoned-down dentist Stu (Ed Helms) when he wakes up after another night of blackout drinking with his friends Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis). But believe it, Stu – this is The Hangover Part II, a movie that’s bound and determined to hit every plot beat from the surprise 2009 hit The Hangover.

Pre-wedding blackout bender? Check. Sleazy adult playground? Substitute Bangkok for Las Vegas, and check. Day after spent hunting down missing pal? Substitute the bride’s brother Teddy (Mason Lee) for the first film’s groom-to-be Doug (Justin Bartha), check. Adorable mute sidekick? Substitute drug-dealing monkey for baby, check. Heterosexual white male privilege of getting rip-roaring drunk and causing havoc everywhere, with tut-tutting but ultimately forgiving women waiting for them at the finish line? Check. Or rather, unchecked.

In this sequel, which brings new meaning to the word “formulaic,” Stu is marrying a rich Thai-American girl in her native country. (His drunken quickie wedding to stripper Heather Graham in the first film having been conveniently swept under the rug.) The event reunites the foursome that oddball Alan insists on calling the “wolfpack,” and even though the plan is to have just one beer on the beach, Stu, Phil and Alan awake in a grimy Bangkok hotel room – Alan’s head has been shaved, Stu’s face has been tattooed, and Teddy is missing, although one of his fingers has been left behind.

And then they’re once again off and running to try to piece together the events of the night previous, which involved a reunion with the nefarious Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) and an escapade that proves that The Hangover Part II, for all its other faults, has the capacity for dealing with queer subject matter in a reasonably progressive manner.

If you don’t want this centerpiece joke spoiled, skip the next two paragraphs...

At one point, the guys return to a strip club where Stu apparently got intimate with dancer Kimmy (Yasmin Lee) in the Chardonnay Room. Kimmy recounts how Stu told her he loved her and that he cried while they passionately made love. But as the conversation continues, it becomes clear that Kimmy, while boasting a prodigious pair of breasts, also has a penis. And that Stu was the, shall we say, receptive party in their lovemaking.

Years ago, this would have been too edgy a joke for American movies. More recently, Stu probably would have vomited and then beaten up Kimmy with his friends’ assistance. Instead, Stu shudders a bit – “I made love to a man with boobies!” – but then the whole episode just becomes another wacky incident from their adventure. Passive anal sex with a “ladyboy” is treated no differently than if someone had written “PENIS” on Stu’s forehead with a Sharpie while he was passed out.

Nonetheless, “The Hangover Part II” is, for the most part, an exceedingly hacky comedy. The few laughs that emerge come from Jeong and Galifianakis, although the latter makes Alan harder and harder to laugh at because the character seems to get more mentally disabled as the film progresses. Laughing at a goofball who lacks any sense of social cues is one thing, but Galifianakis makes the character so very damaged that at times it feels like the movie is poking fun at the autistic.

Paul Giamatti, of all people, pops up as a nefarious underworld type, and he acts the hell out of a barely-there role. Cooper continues to be unable to make his total tool of a character feel more palatable than it does on the page, and Helms does a lot of suffering with some aplomb. (And what’s the deal with Justin Bartha? He always gets a minimum of camera time but gets to travel to the fun locations – it’s the acting equivalent of being the first team eliminated on “The Amazing Race.”)

The makers of “The Hangover Part II” get props for making a movie that won’t elicit an angry press release from GLAAD, but that’s about the best that can be said for it.