I haven't read this kind of gushing since 'The Dark Knight' came out. I thought the movie was very funny. I think my friend's criticism of the content of the trailers was overblown but accurate in two instances. In particular, the Tyson cameo would have been funny if he had been left out of the trailers.
But I know people who went to see The Hangover solely because of the Tyson appearance in the trailers.
Saw it Saturday, on a whim of sorts, as a diversion to some unsettling news. That might have tempered my perspective some, but I found it only intermittedly funny and terribly (un-)directed. One major problem: Who would consider being friends with the pretty-boy lead? Yeah, I get the he-teaches-but-he-thinks-his-students-are-dolts framing, but his obtuseness was less funny than lame. Heather Graham was sweet (and sweet-looking), so there's that.
Don't you have any friends that you kind of think are douche bags? I certainly have a few. Not guys I'm really close to, but guys that get invited on trips like that.
Kind of what I thought. It seems maybe the groom and the Ed Helms character are good friends who share similar temperaments, and the "pretty-boy" likes to hang out with those guys because they let him be the cock-of-the-walk, know-it-all he thinks he is. And those guys get cool points for being with him. It's a very believeable dynamic.
Fair enough point I guess. I cetainly didn't avoid because of Tyson being included in the trailers. I just got no amusement out of his cameo. I think I would have if I hadn't known about it.
I saw it yesterday and loved it. I had really high expectations and it exceeded all of them. As I said to my buddy when we were leaving, it's not often that halfway through a movie I'm already wondering when the DVD is coming out so I can buy it.
Cry Freedom, Mo Better Blues, Glory, Malcom X, Philadelphia, He Got Game, Remember the Titans, John Q, Antoine Fisher, American Gangster, The Great Debators... Those were all the same character?
Not to mention Denzel being an uncomfortable asshole in Training Day... Just caught a matinee of The Hangover today. It was what it should have been, nothing less, nothing more. That's a compliment to the movie, really. So many ways it could have been terribly cliched, but it wasn't. Fun, fun flick. Favorite underrated line was Zach G. at the end to Stu's (ex)girlfriend. "I'm thinking of going to bartender's school." "Suck my dick." "No thank you."
Zach G. makes the whole movie work. I saw a Comedy Central bit he did last week, where a choir of 7- and 8-year-old boys sings "The Greatest Love of All" while he tears away one giant page after another off a big easel, explainin' what a big loser he is. Very Dangerfieldesque. My fave is when he says, "I flunked kindergarten," which was before "because I couldn't spell my last name."