'The Hangover: Part III' Made Me Want To Drink. Heavily.

Thank God this is the end.  I will be brief.

I like the Hangover movies, because they are like the Fast and the Furious of summer comedies.  They are big, loud, obnoxious, and they just want to entertain you for two hours.  The original made a buttload of money, so natually they were going to crank some sequels.  Part II was a bit unsatisfying, but that was basically because it was a rehash of the original.  A Home Alone 2: Lost in New York if you will.  Same premise, different location.  The producers of these movies wisely understood that they didn't have far to go with this formula and formatted the sequels as a trilogy. 

Well, The Wolfpack (Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha)  is back for a final hangover.  Wait.  There is no hangover in this movie, and that's one of the problems.  The first two movies let these men run around madly trying to piece together the previous evening, but this final chapter just throws them together to try to find Chow (Ken Jeung) before the bad guy (John Goodman) kill Doug (Justin Bartha).  Justin Bartha must have a really great time filming these movies.  He comes in, shoots for a day or two and leaves.  The rest of The Wolfpack have to do all the work. 

Actually, the problem with The Hangover: Part III is that it isn't particularly funny.  The movie is strangely dramatic with an intense tone surrounding it the entire time.  Sure, Zach Galifianakis rattles off a few lines, but they are embarrassing compared to what he could do.  Cooper feels phoned in, as if having an Oscar nomination under his belt makes these comedies beneath him.  He fades into the background.  I will say that his ass looks great though.  It should have received higher billing. 

All the advertising makes it sound like this is an end of an era movie, but it never feels like that.  You would think they would like to have their character sent off better than this.  The mid-credits scene is funny, though I don't want to say anything because I don't want to ruin it.  I wish that would have been the first scene of a different movie, because I would loved to pay to see that one.