Trailer Trash (Familiar Ground Edition)

I liked The Hangover. Most likely, so did you, if the box office figures are accurate. It’s got as many laughs per capita as any movie that’s come out in the last several years. Does that mean it’s a great movie? Not by a long shot. None of the characters are all that interesting, and the latter half doesn’t quite keep up the same pace as the first half. Still, I loved it enough that I went out and bought it on DVD, and it’s offered me several hours of hilarious diversion since.

The film’s behemothic box office success no doubt meant that there would be some kind of sequel, spin-off or follow-up graphic novel. Well, at long last we have been treated to the trailer for The Hangover: Part II. So here it is:

This… isn’t promising. Of all the sequel types out there, the one I like the least is the “We have to do what again?” sequel. This is the sequel that takes the plot of the first film and repeats it with only a few minor variations. Unfortunately this seems to be the exact route The Hangover: Part II is taking. It’s one thing to reunite the characters America fell in love with. It’s another to just regurgitate the same darn movie back at them.

And boy oh boy does this look like regurgitation. Let’s take a look, shall we?

1.    1) Instead of losing Justin Bartha’s Doug, they lose the younger brother of Stu’s future wife. In a near-identical montage of drinking and debauchery, no doubt!

2) They wake up with various changes to their body in a disheveled room. I wonder if such things will become clues as to where they lost the Asian boy…

3) Instead of a baby, they have a monkey!

4) What a coincidence! It’s Ken Jeong’s insane Asian gangster! Fancy us running into you here since the audience loved you so much the first time!

5) Hijinks ensue! And there are people with guns!

I would argue that sequels have gotten better over the course of the past decade or so. Hollywood seems to put a bit of effort into them that was never there before. More and more sequels have gone out of their way to expand the universe found in the original and tell a story that doesn’t merely re-hash what was seen the first time around. The Hangover: Part II seems to be reverting back to when sequels barely tried to do anything new. I admit that it’s just a trailer, but there’s such a thing as giving the audience too much of what they want.

Also, is the language rather salty for a green-band trailer or am I just a grumpy old man?