Two years after The Hangover scored a surprise box office hit, the wolfpack are back and they clearly haven’t tried messing with a winning formula. This time it’s dentist Stu who’s walking down the aisle and our beloved Thailand that plays host to the drunken antics of our happy but maladjusted group.
One drink on the beach turns into a hazy nightmare of a night out and leads to Stu, Phil and Alan (yep, poor old Doug lucks out again) waking up in a seedy, trashed room in an unknown city. The only difference this time is it’s Stu’s younger brother in law, Teddy who’s missing, apparently lost somewhere in the dark underbelly of Bangkok.
The resulting escapades are something of a disappointment, perhaps because of the hype, but more probably because we’ve seen it all before and we know what’s coming. Where we were prepared to suspend disbelief the first time, it’s hard to do it twice. It doesn’t have the freshness of the original, or the jokes and, to be honest, it all feels a little tame in comparison–it’s hard to top a tiger.
There’s also a slight going-through-the motions feel to it all, as our trio never really connect with the city during their misadventures. Most of the people they seem meet are foreigners and aside from the usual Bangkok clichés (ladyboys, monks, elephants and the like) they really could be anywhere. We know US audiences won’t care but there are also enough errors and inconsistencies to grate on Bangkokians – like getting to Krabi by speedboat in a couple of hours, or that no one bats an eyelid when a car jumps a klong – there’s no way cars go that fast in this town.  
To be fair it’s not that bad, Bangkok and Krabi look very beautiful (perversely it will probably be great for tourism) and it just about avoids being too stereotypical about Thailand and Asia in general. There are plenty of good slapstick moments that will have you laughing out loud and some very good one liners, especially those scenes involving the wonderfully over the top Mr. Chou and the super cute cigarette smoking monkey, but in both cases there’s just not really enough of them.
At the end of the day this is a film about drinking and partying, so shouldn’t be taken too seriously. We just wish they had partied a little harder and had a bit more fun while doing it.