June 3, 2009

Hair of the Dog Will Not Get That Picture Out of My Head.

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"Tracy, we f****ed up," Bradley Cooper says as the movie The Hangover opens. Yes, yes you did, former-hottie-from-Alias-turned-bastard-from-He's-Just-Not-That-Into-You. You did f*** up when you put Mike Tyson in your movie. AND Carrot Top. Okay, Carrot Top is technically only in the credits, but seriously, did you need that last kick in the crotch at the end of a long, creepy frat party?

Okay, okay, I'll start at the beginning. (No, it's not a very good place to start, for those of you singing along.) Four guys at a bachelor party in Vegas. What could possibly happen? Drunkenness? Hookers? Drugs? I know - your imagination must be running WILD. WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?

Bradley Cooper as Phil, all around bastard and good for nothing, who is also a teacher of children, and husband and father, is the leader of the pack. He has planned a *sweet* bachelor party in Vegas for his best friend Doug (Justin Bartha) and even upgrades to a villa for $4200 a night, courtesy of his friend Stu's (Ed Helms) credit card. The bride's brother, (a very weird Zach Galifianakis) is along for the ride, hitting on 12 year-olds and tucking his gray nature t-shirt into his khaki pants and wearing sneakers for the night out.

The next morning, they wake up with no memory of the night before and a tiger, a baby, a chicken and a big fat mess in their room. Oh. And the groom is missing. The friends embark on a journey to find the groom and figure out what happened to them the night before.

Ed Helms (Andy from The Office) eeks out the best performance in the film, playing an uptight dentist dating Rachel Harris. He constantly refers to himself as a doctor, to which his friends reply, "You're a dentist, not a doctor," and his subservience to his dominant girlfriend to avoid confrontation forced me to laugh several times.

Zach Galifianakis plays the creepy Alan deadpan, which totally increases the creep factor. And somehow, the friends choose HIM to be the one to carry the baby they find in their room. I tried not to laugh because he was SO inappropriate (knocking the baby on the head with a car door, strapping the baby in the backseat), but I couldn't stop myself.

And then, there were the scenes with Mike Tyson, which I can't speak of without cringing. The woodenness of his line delivery was painful and seemed to be contagious among the group. I mean, it's to be expected, but it was way worse when I was watching it than in my imagination.

Oh. And I forgot. The worst female actress on earth: Heather Graham. Guess what her occupation is in the movie? Come on, guess! I bet you'll never... oh. Right. A hooker. Her facial expressions were freakishly plastic and when she tried to get emotional, that really pushed me over the this-movie-really-really-sucks line.

And the closing credits. They are important to the suckiness of this movie. And to the current state of my brain being stained by images that I could honestly have gone my whole life without seeing.

What scares me, though, is that the people around me in the screening were saying words like "perfect" and "awesome" when it was over. Maybe "uncomfortably comical" or "waste of time" or even "okay, since today is not my last day on earth and I still have time to make up for those last 2 hours" but "perfect" and "awesome"? I am pretty sure it was not that.

Should you see this movie? Yes! (if you are a drunk 19-year-old male)
The Hangover opens Friday and is totally rated R.

I just read that Hangover 2 is in production. I'm so curious about the plot.

3 comments:

chelsea said...

HaHA I like this review. I saw the bearded guy on dave last night. He is a quirky one for sure. He was super nervous.

Hey, It's Ansley said...

Funny! I mean your review not the movie.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, but I have to disagree with your review (although I thoroughly enjoyed reading it)!

As a Vegas vacation veteran and having been there 10 times in the last 8 years, I found the movie absolutely Hi-sterical! Things happen in Vegas that just don't happen anywhere else - whether that's because of the venue or because of the people who do crazy things because of the venue - I don't know... But the crazy "snapshots" at the epilogue were icing on the cake! I wouldn't necessarily say it was "perfect", but I would say that it was "Classic Vegas" and it reminded me of some crazy times I've had there - of course, nothing as crazy as in the movie, but you didn't go see it expecting an Oscar winner, now did you?