Thursday 7 January 2010

The Hangover - Re-Rewind when the crowd go bo selector

One of the most popular and successful comedies of 2009. Why?? Todd Philips, that's why. From the director of Old School and Road Trip comes another winner. But, as with all his films, at first glance it just seems average. TP is up there with Judd Apatow for me. Maybe not trying to be quite as clever, but just as funny. His films are just full of 'moments' lots of them that just gel with each other to make a brilliant film.

The Hangover has lots of them. The Doctor scene, Mr Chows voice, The 'this isn't the first time I've found a baby' line, in fact any scene with Alan. Pure class. It plays serious and stylish from time to time and you wonder if it was trying to be like 'Very Bad Things', but there's no way it could have been. It's just a comedy film trying to pull away from the Teen only audience. All his films are. No preaching, no moral, just laughs.

4 comments:

Nick aka Puppet Angel said...

I thought The Hangover was quite good. It just wasn't as funny or memorable as I thought it would be. Todd Philips' films are all rather lightweight having nothing much below the laughs. With the likes of Old School and Road Trip that doesn't really matter as the cast elevate those films. Old School is memorable to me mainly for one person: Will Ferrell's Frank the Tank. "We're going streaking!" Fab! And in Road Trip it is the clearly insane Tom Green and the always fun Stiffler... I mean Sean William Scott. I just didn't get that with The Hangover. None of the cast really registered. They were fine, just not memorable. To me The Hangover was amusing but, sadly, instantly forgettable.

Roby said...

Very weird Sickboy - I also by complete coincidence watched this on the same day that you reviewed it...

Anyway.... The Hangover. Pretty, pretty good as Larry David would say.

A few laugh out loud moments - Alan getting sparked out by Tyson and the gay Chinese mob-boss was funny but I'd have to say it's a little bit over rated.

Certainly not as good as Starsky & Hutch or Old School though which are other comedies I love more by Todd Phillips.

sickboy said...

It's a grower. I can see why it did so well. It's that middle ground that we are missing, between teen gross out comedy and adult relationship comedy. I will definetly be adding to my collection at some point.

It's funny that you mention Starsky & Hutch as that falls into classic Todd Philips for me. On first watch I didn't really think much of it aside from 'OK'. But it just keeps nagging at the brain to be rewatched and appreciated.

More importantly though, even though it's the newer film and means nothing, The Hangover rates the highest of those four films.

sickboy said...

And obviously It was doing the rounds at work Bobby. I got it from Big Pool, you got it from Big Urn. Must have been on a few Christmas Lists.