Letterboxd — Your life in film

A sequel everyone "wanted," but no one actually wanted, 'The Hangover 2' is a great snapshot of the state of Hollywood today*. The original 'Hangover' functioned in a vacuum, featured decent characters, and resolved its plot well enough, and had a great photo reveal credits scene. Did anyone need to see what these guys did next?

Well, obviously someone did - likely an executive - so they sent the Hangover Friends™ to the only place CRRRRRAAAAZZZIER than Las Vegas: Bangkok (or as I call it, Crazier Las Vegas). 'The Hangover 2' is nearly the exact same concept as the first film, with some of the similarities so ridiculous that one has to wonder if an entire script was written or if it was just individual scenes thrown together with re-shot scenes from the first film. Did we really need another Ed Helms song?

Really, 'The Hangover 2' isn't THAT bad, but it's not good either. Bradley Cooper is decent, but is set on auto-pilot to the point that sometimes all he functions as is a sweaty shirt with a furrowed brow. I watched this sometime around 8 AM, and I actually think this helped the film for some reason. Maybe it was the first beautiful rays of sunlight breaching through the window, maybe it was the bold roast coffee I was enjoying, maybe it was the anticipation of a delicious brunch later in the day. Whatever it was, I didn't dislike 'The Hangover 2' as much as I expected to on a rewatch.

*WHAT IF THEY MADE A THIRD HANGOVER?!?!?!?

Alex Cross is on the case again, this time on the trail of his abducted niece. He will be forced out of his comfort zone and into the stomping grounds of a sick killer as he traverses the country on the hunt for answers.

Morgan Freeman is pretty damn good as Alex Cross, bringing his calm demeanor to the detective/doctor's leather jacket. Freeman is complimented by a serviceable performance from Ashley Judd, who looks pretty damn good, considering it's been over 15 years since this movie was made.

Given I'd seen this before, I wanted to pay special attention to see if the script/direction telegraphs its late twist, and it seemed it did every chance it got. I'd love to see Freeman's Alex Cross meet up with Tyler Perry's Alex Cross in an Alex Cross time travel film in which solving the murder requires Alex Cross to "Cross" the "streams" and possibly destroy the space-time continuum.

Another in the long line of gross-out "horror" films, 'Final Destination 5' actually serves as an origin story for the series. FD5 takes place weeks before the original film, but was made over a decade later.

I can say one thing for certain about a Final Destination film - you know exactly what you're going to get. The films open with the main character forseeing a catastrophic event, followed by the same character helping his friends/co-workers/nephews/blah blah blah. The group of saved is then marked for death in increasingly complicated/gory/ridiculous ways.

There's nothing new on display here besides 3D (and since I watched this at home on free HBO, I didn't experience that). David Koechner is weirdly cast here as well, which kind of caught me by surprise. The highlight death in FD5 comes by way of LASIK complication - because when all of your friends are dying, the best thing to do is to get your EYES operated on by a LASER.