The Hangover Part III (2013), R, 1 star

The gang and Chow formulating a plan.

When I first saw The Hangover,  I laughed constantly throughout the movie. The guts to turn a surprisingly very funny comedy into a franchise statistically does not pay off. I mean look at the Friday the 13th series, Saw series, and the Alien franchise (Ok, Aliens was awesome.), it is a travesty. All of the studio executives want to make more money and it pays off since the audience likes the characters enough. I did not think that Part II was that good, but with this one, I think the series has ran out of gas. Thank goodness that this is a conclusion of a trilogy.

Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) has escaped from a maximum security prison during a wild riot after the events of Bangkok two years ago. Meanwhile, Alan (Zach Galifianakis) gets in an accident where he purchased a giraffe and gets it decapitated on a low bridge causing a huge pileup. Because of this huge accident, Sid (Jeffrey Tambor) gets angry about this incident but suddenly dies of a heart attack. (Not a spoiler, it's in the trailer.)

Doug (Justin Bartha) tells Phil and Stu (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms) that Alan has not taken medication for his ADHD and is wildly out of control. Now, they and a few family members have an intervention for Alan so "the Wolfpack" can take him to a rehab center in Arizona. While on the trip, they are rammed by a rental truck where are they are kidnapped and confronted by Marshall (John Goodman) and "Black Doug" (Mike Epps). Marshall knows that Alan has communicated with Chow since Chow owes Marshall him a lot of money. Marshall takes Doug as collateral so he can know that the rest of the gang can find Chow in a window of three days. Why does Doug not have any fun in these movies?

Hey, it's Carlos!

I have to say right away even though there are funny moments, the tone of the two movies is entirely different from this movie. The first movie is obviously a comedy, the second movie is a dark and disturbing (and bad) comedy, and the third movie is a dark thriller. I don't know what Todd Phillips, the director, was thinking by changing the tone because it takes the amusement and entertainment away from what "The Hangover" is really about. I mean there's no hangover in this movie, so what is the purpose for calling it The Hangover Part III if there is no hangover.

We do get to reunite with a few characters in Vegas such as "Black Doug" and Jade (Heather Graham) and Carlos. It was great to see Jade again because I thought she was a really vibrant character even though she's not in the movie that much. We do meet one character that generates laugh and that is Cassie (Melissa McCarthy), who runs a pawnshop and has a connection with Alan, with...a...lollipop. Ugh!

Cooper and Helms looked tired and wanted to get the movie over with so they could get their paycheck. Galifianakis generates a few laughs in this movie and a few scenes remind us why Alan is such a lovable guy. I definitely hated the fact that this was Chow's movie. I liked as a small supporting character. In this movie, he was initially entertaining, then got boring and aggravating where at the point I do not want to see that character again. Ken Jeong does what he can with this material.

Even though there are a few laughs, I was bored by this movie with all of the thriller and action elements. This is not a comedy. The comedic spirit is taken away from the movie. This was an insensitive and incompetent wasted movie that had no right to become the last movie of the trilogy. I'll give the filmmakers this: The post-credits scene is the funniest scene in the movie and that should've been the material for a third movie. But, it was too late.

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