An earnest life-coach/author, Thomas Carter, is mysteriously abducted by a deranged client, Angel Sanchez, who delves into Thomas' teachings and uses his spiritual messages of Karma - action and reaction (Vipaka), against him to terrorize him and his family for their past sins. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Philippe Caland
Starring: Forest Whitaker, Anthony Mackie, Mike Epps and others
Well, I'm kind of weird about The Hangover movies. I liked the second one better than the first and I'm also quite fond of this movie, while it seems that I'm a minority on this.
Guess that one of the main reason why this movie isn't as liked as much is because it isn't following the usual 'Hangover-formula'. So no waking up at a weird place, with weird things and animals surrounding our main heroes, while they remember absolutely nothing about what happened the previous night and try to piece things together, as the story moves along. I don't mind this formula and would have been happy to seen it used in this movie as well but at the same time I can also understand why they tried to do something different, this time around. There is of course a great danger that this movie would be nothing more but a rehash of the previous two movies, once it started using the same sort of formula. This was actually something that already started to bother a lot of people, when the second movie of the trilogy came out.
I kind of agree that this movie doesn't really feel like a part of a trilogy but it's still definitely a sequel, in the sense that it's a continuation of the stories of its main characters. The approach to the story is somewhat different but all of the characters and the humor are still definitely the same. No big surprise, since all 3 movies are done by basically the same cast & crew. Director Todd Phillips directed all three movies and I have always kind of liked his comedy and directing approach. He often picks some very formulaic and simplistic sounding comedy concept but always manages to turn it into something special and unexpected. It's also therefore why his comedies are often better and more effective ones to watch than the usual genre attempts, done by different people. It's therefore also absolutely ludicrous to call this movie a bad one, in my opinion. I can understand it being your least favorite one out of the whole trilogy but please don't mistake it for a bad movie as well!
Thing that it all eventually comes down to, is that I was simply entertained by this movie, all throughout It isn't necessarily saying anything about its quality or originality but it is saying something about its effectiveness. As a comedy this movie definitely serves its purpose and it serves it well! Some of the situations made me laugh, some of its dialog made me laugh, most characters made me laugh, so that all makes this a pretty effective comedy in my book!
Of course it's definitely not without its flaws or weaknesses. After all, this is also my least favorite Hangover movie out of the trilogy, so I still had plenty of problems with it as well. The story and comedy doesn't always feel like it's the best or cleverest thing ever and the movie and there's a bit of overkill in the movie. Sometimes less is more and sometimes some things are just funnier and better in smaller doses. This for instance goes for the Chow character. He plays a pretty big role in this movie but he's definitely better, funnier and more tolerable when he shows up for just a couple of minutes, as he for instance did in the first movie.
I also can't really say that this movie feels like closure. There is nothing about this movie that indicates that this could possibly be the last Hanogover movie. It's of course possible that we'll indeed get to see more Hangover movies in the future but the problem is that this movie loves to advertise itself as the end of the trilogy, like it's bringing closure and it's being the ultimate finale. None of that is true really but it's not really something that I'm holding against the movie. It's wrong advertising but you can't blame the movie itself for this.
Simply enjoy it for what it is; a good, quality, comedy. Don't expect the ultimate Hangover movie or one that plays by the exact same 'rules' as the previous two movie.
Well, here is the one guy that actually liked watching "Soul Plane", so I also was quite into the humor of this movie at first. However about halfway through this movie started to go downhill very fast.
As the start of the movie literally tells you; in order to enjoy and appreciate this movie you really first need to smoke some weed. Now I am not saying you should take drugs before watching this movie but it should tell you something about the movie its style and type of humor. If this doesn't sound fun or appealing at all to you, then simply stay away from this movie and never even come close to it.
The comedy of the movie is quite random at times and very often has nothing to do with the movie and its main story at all. I seriously don't mind this, since most of it really cracked me up. It however starts to become tiresome after a while, especially when it becomes apparent that the movie isn't going anywhere anymore with its story and is completely starting to loose focus after some time.
There comes a point, about halfway through the movie, that it becomes too much of a drugs movie. Seriously, every characters starts doing drugs (well, only marijuana) and only good things come from it, all the time. Not that this movie is necessarily a pro-drugs movie though, it's just far too silly for that of course but in parts it's actually still advocating for legalizing and using marijuana but this movie is of course not the best way to do so and isn't exactly setting the right example for any youngsters out there, though Snoop himself will probably disagree with me on this.
The way I see it; every now and then Snoop Dogg decides to have some fun and call a couple of friends to make a movie with. Nothing too fancy or expensive, just a simple movie to make, to pass some time with and to have a great and fun time while shooting. This for most part can be seen back on the screen, which is a positive thing to say, since it makes the movie a really fun one to watch at parts but the quality and money put into is all far too little to truly consider this a good enough movie, or even to take it serious enough as one.
Snoop Dogg is actually also the reason why I sometimes watch these kind of movies. I really like him as a person and actor and his personality and comedic style always makes me laugh and smile. He also definitely is being the highlight of this movie. Without him I would had most likely absolutely hated watching it.
Not a good movie by any means but I at least still got some laughs out of it. Thanks Snoop!
(Review originally written at 19 September 2009) *** This review may contain spoilers *** I really like Todd Phillips as a director. He knows how to bring teenage lame humor as something hilarious and also convincing. His movies have the power to be likable and even credible ones due to its likable main, anti-hero, characters, not matter what crazy situations they are being put in. This movie is basically one movie to goes from the one crazy event into the other one. Yet it doesn't loose it's focus on its main plot and also knows to find the time to work on its characters as well. The characters are all being handled and build-up well into the movie. It's the same type of comedy approach Phillips used earlier for movies such as "Road Trip" and "Old School". The movie relies heavily on its main concept. It feels like though that the entire story got based around the writers idea of having a couple of guys wake up in a wrecked hotel room and things are missing and other things suddenly are in their room and most importantly one of their buddies who is about to get married is missing. It's like they first come up with this idea and then decided to write and base the entire story around this. This has as a result though that not all things reach a satisfying closure. It also has as a result that things get raveled at times, as can best been seen during its end credits when gets revealed what happened all during their long night, they remembered nothing about the next morning. So well, no, the movie isn't perfect but still it's one of the more enjoyable ones of recent years, along with "Tropic Thunder". The movie is throughout funny and even during its weaker moments it knows to entertain, which is also due to its characters. The movie has a sort of adventurous feeling over it, since the movie jumps from the one extreme event into the other one. It's a comedy-odyssey. The movie doesn't really feature any well known comedy actors in it for its main parts. This works well though for the story I feel, since in cases when movies have big comedy-stars in it, the movie and its humor mostly rely on the performances from those stars and puts most of the emphasis one them. In this case it can rely more on its story, situations and the characters as individuals. The movie still features some well known actors in it though, mostly in some cameo-roles. There are not too many though, which is a good thing, so it doesn't ever get distracting. It's a real good and fun movie! 8/10 Watch trailer
This movie is a very sloppy one. The story is filled with some unlikely events and characters and the directing and especially editing is seriously flawed mostly. Still thanks to its music, this movie still has some entertainment value and also somewhat still works as a 'feel good movie'.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the movie is that the comedy and drama elements of the movie are not balanced out very well. At times the movie can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a drama. A result of this is that most of the comedy feels out of place and seriously mistimed. The movie becomes never funny to watch because of this but the warm feel good atmosphere of the movie still somewhat compensates for this.
At times it just totally feels like entire sequences in the movie are missing. Lots of moments in the movie feel rushed and are not satisfying enough. The movie is a real sloppy job. You can't just blame the script for this but also the filmmakers involved. Yes, it's a real mess of a movie at times, that too often takes the easy simple road.
But yet the movie still works good thanks to its music. It makes the movie very pleasant to watch and therefor the movie still works good as a simple feel good movie. But that obviously doesn't mean that the movie itself is also a good one. The movie is too flawed in its story and way of film-making to consider this movie a good or totally recommendable one.
There still is enough to enjoy in this movie but the sloppy way of film-making and storytelling don't make this movie really a recommendable one. Perhaps this movie is a typical case of 'watch at your own risk'...chances are you might end up loving- or totally hating it.
