Editorial
Front Page - Friday, June 19, 2009
The Critic's Corner
David Laprad
As a movie, “The Hangover” is a lot like Vegas, the city in which most of its action takes place: all set up with no payoff. In the raunchy road trip comedy, four buddies travel to Sin City to celebrate the impending nuptials of one of their own. When three of them wake up the next morning sans the groom and any memory of what took place the night before, a race to find their friend and return home before the wedding begins.
The foursome consists of Doug, who’s getting married in two days; his future brother-in-law, Alan, who’s a few cards short of a full deck; Phil, an elementary school teacher who uses the money his students paid for a field trip to finance his weekend; and Stu, a dentist who’s dating a control freak. Stu is so weak-kneed, he tells his girlfriend he’s going to a wine tasting in Napa Valley.
The best part of the movie comes as it cuts from the four offering a toast to Doug on the roof of their hotel to the next morning, when Alan, Phil and Stu wake up to a tiger in the bathroom, a chicken in the living room, profuse evidence of uncontrolled debauchery and a hospital bracelet on Phil’s wrist. As the camera pans across the room to Alan, we see a woman’s legs cross the room and step out the front door. Later, when the men give their parking ticket to the valet, he pulls up in a stolen cop car.
It’s a winning set up, even if you don’t appreciate the crude language and humor that oozes from every frame of “The Hangover” like the smell of cheap wine from a drunk. (This movie earns its R rating.)
The moment the mystery starts to unravel, though, you can hear the air hissing out of the movie. By the end of “The Hangover,” you’ll be as bored as you would be watching an “According to Jim” marathon on ABC. It’s too bad a movie that begins with such an inspired premise ends so conventionally. Rating: Skip it.
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By the time you read this, “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” will be making its way to discount theaters. But even at a reduced ticket price, it’s not worth 105 minutes of your time.
It’s easy to understand why Twentieth Century Fox made a sequel to the original “Night at the Museum,” in which an ancient tablet brings the displays in a museum to life after dark: it made a ton of money. And it’s not hard to figure out why the second movie is as dull as the first: if people paid to see the first one, why spend money on a better script?
The movie opens with the proprietor of the Museum of Natural History closing the gallery for renovations and shipping all of the materials to the Smithsonian for storage. Larry, the security guard in the original, follows his friends to Washington, D.C. There, the tablet brings Amelia Earhart, Al Capone and General Custer to life, in addition to Teddy Roosevelt, Jedediah and others from the first movie. Also resurrected is Kahmunrah, an evil Pharaoh who plans to use the tablet to summon an army of demons.
To call the plot of “Night at the Museum 2” paper thin would be an insult to wood pulp. In one scene, Larry has to sneak past two guards to access a secured area of the Smithsonian, but later, when chaos erupts, the guards are nowhere to be seen.
Later, as Larry and Amelia race through the Smithsonian to find a piece of the tablet before Kahmunrah kills Jedediah, there’s no rhyme or reason to what happens. They even stop in the Lincoln Memorial and chat with Honest Abe, even though there’s no narrative reason for them to be there.
And during the final battle, it’s hard to dig up any enthusiasm for what’s taking place. The entire story feels like a loosely connected string of manufactured crises and weak jokes.
“Night at the Museum 2” is rated PG, making it an ostensibly good choice for a family outing. But other than young kids, who might like the monkeys, viewers will likely be bored.
I want to set aside a special paragraph to discuss the performance of Jonah Hill as a security guard that has a run-in with Larry. Hill evidently made up most of his lines on the spot, and it’s painful to watch as he stumbles over words and coughs up lame improvised dialogue. How do performers like this get a part in a movie? I don’t understand.
What I do know is that “Night of the Museum 2” has already made enough money to guarantee a third installment in the series. I think I’ll stay home and watch “According to Jim” instead. Rating:
Skip it.
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