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What’s the only thing worse than a comedy that doesn’t make you laugh?  The answer might be a comedy that’s so fixated on setting up the next joke that it forgets to establish any normal semblance of “story” or “character development.”  This movie is not just unfunny; it is downright boring.  I felt myself squirming with boredom far more than I’d be had I saved the trip to the theater, instead opting to sit on my back porch watching plants sway in the wind.  I’m sure some might be quick to peg me as someone who simply doesn’t “understand” the ever evolving genre of comedy.  The one so jam-packed with irreverent pop culture references that it only takes a break from those to flash you one of the main character’s asses.  Are these actually movies?

The film starts with four friends on their way to Vegas for a bachelor party.  Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis), and Doug (Justin Bartha) each have a rather one-dimensional problem in their respective lives: Phil is a dismissive and money-laundering school teacher who comically hates his wife and kids.  Stu is a dentist who has been dating a one-dimensionally evil woman, and is planning on marrying her when he gets back from the trip.  Alan is hilariously a registered sex offender.  And then there’s Doug: the character not on-screen long enough to have any established problems with his life.  It’s ironic that the least developed character is the one we’re expected to care so much about after he mysteriously goes missing.  The rest of the movie is a painfully witless odyssey while these three friends trace their steps (á la Dude, Where’s My Car?) to try to recover Doug in time for the wedding.  (For awhile, they even hypothesize he might be dead!  Boy howdy, wouldn’t that have been a riot?)

In good comedies, entertaining vignettes can exist, but characters must connect them if only with subtle expressions of growth or lack thereof (i.e. Fellini).  Instead of accepting this fundamental approach to storytelling, this movie sets up scene after scene as if it were a crappy MadTV sketch, where the only constraint in writing was the number of characters with which to alternate giving marketable catchphrases.  Take the story and the characters and put them in situations where their reactions fuel the humor (i.e. The Big Lebowski, Superbad).  Alternatively, lazy or ignorant comedy writers can instead take stock characters and put them in stock situations and throw in completely sophomoric clichés.  Don’t expect any more than the latter from this movie.

Continuing to spiral out of control, The Hangover runs around in circles until the writers simply run out of “ideas.”  At which point, the characters make a convenient realization, and all in the world is right again.  Sadly, after an hour and a half of alternating juvenile one-liners and men’s asses, the last thing I wanted to see was a feeble attempt to have all the characters learn a lesson.  What I thought was just a setup turned out to be an attempted frame story.  This movie never tries to be anything, yet still fails wholeheartedly.

My thoughts walking out of this movie turned to some simple math: The Hangover has already made over $150 million.  If we assume people are paying roughly $10 a ticket, then that works out to 15 million tickets sold.  At a running time of 100 minutes, mankind in general has lost 25 million hours on this movie.  That’s almost 3 millenia of time people have already spent watching The Hangover.  I pose to you the question: was it really worth it?

-Paul Brinnel