Bumpier ride for ‘Hangover’ gang

“The Hangover” was one of last year’s “sleeper” hits. You’d think that its producers would thank their lucky stars for the unexpected bonanza, and spend the rest of their days slap-happily counting their mega-millions. But, hoping and lusting to make even more gazillions, they’re back with “The Hangover 2.”

Now, sequels of hits have become par for the course in Hollywood, but this is too much: Instead of putting its comebacking characters in a fresh storyline, the sequel is about – another wedding gone astoundingly, preternaturally and epically wrong. It’s stultifyingly, banally and anally predictable enough to give you a really bad – hangover.

Drug binge

This time around, the gang is in Thailand for another crack at the weirdo wedding of the century – and, when they wake up after an “unintentional” drug binge, they’ve all gone blotto and amnesiac. Why does the dentist have a new tattoo on his face? Why is a wacky monkey nibbling on a dismembered human finger? Why is the bride’s whiz-kid brother missing? Why do they get involved in a big drug bust and a randy chorus line of transvestite and transgender chorines? –Why?!

In time, all those questions are answered and the wedding finally takes place. But, the “crazy,” souped-up ride is bumpier and less fun than the original flick, which at least had an outre kind of freshness going for it. Here, it’s mostly twice around the park for the boys – and where’s the fresh fun in that?

It’s also even more gross and gross-out than the first film, both visually and verbally. The production has upped its “gross quotient” to keep viewers “entertained,” but our outraged moans indicate that this kind of entertainment could be a new form of torture.

Intelligence

But, it looks like the producers’ canny and cynical gambit is paying off, because this sequel has, like the original, ended up comfortably in the black – which just goes to show what patsies for “punishment” quite a number of moviegoers are. As an iconic show biz cynic once cracked, nobody has ever lost money in Hollywood underestimating the intelligence of the filmgoing audience – !