The 19 Meanest Reviews Of ‘The Hangover Part III’
“Chow is actually an apt metaphor for the movie -- indescribably irritating and only in it for the money.”
By 
Nico Lang
Yesterday I saw a homeless man walk in front of a bus and a sorority girl in a very big hurry almost pushed me onto the train tracks of the Chicago “L.” I would like to believe that both of those experiences prepared me to read the reviews for The Hangover Part III, in which director Todd Phillips and his team appear set to destroy anything you might have liked about the original film (which, believe it or not, was a critical darling).
The homeless man is fine. He emerged unscathed. I can’t say the same for Ken Jeong.
1. “The good news is that ‘The Hangover Part III’ isn’t a rerun like the second episode. The bad news is everything else. For all the promise of mayhem and WTF moments, the final episode hits you with all the force of a warm can of O’Doul’s.”
– Kyle Smith, New York Post
2. “A dull, lazy walkthrough that along with ‘The Big Wedding’ has a claim to be the year’s worst star-driven movie.”
– Stephen Holden, New York Times
3. “If the first ‘Hangover’ movie were this awful, there never would have been a Part Two. This is a joyless, unfunny mix of comedy and drama, a complete waste of time, with exactly one good joke in the entire movie. It comes in the first minute. After that, you can leave.”
– Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle
4. “Part III has curiously little interest in being even remotely funny…Humor feels like an afterthought: Galifianakis’s clueless manchild act, always a winner, feels pitifully DOA, while Cooper and Helms, having realized they could play their respective douche-dude and nebbish roles in their sleep, proceed to do just that.”
– David Fear, Time Out London
5. “’The Hangover Part III’ gives off such a stench of creative decay that it hardly seems possible that even Phillips or his co-writers have any use for the movie themselves.”
– Mary Pais, Time
6. “Phillips has lost all of the sharp humor, keen sense of debauchery and still plain fun that marked the original.”
– Charlie Collum, San Jose Mercury News
7. “It is barely a comedy. Heck, it’s barely a movie.”
– Eric D. Snider, Twitch Film
8. “Young viewers looking for unbridled raunch will be sadly disappointed, and so will other moviegoers expecting more than a few wan chuckles. This picture is like a brightly colored balloon with all the comic air seeping out.”
– Stephen Farber, Hollywood Reporter
9. “There is one very funny bit, and it comes courtesy of the end credits’ stinger, which has our characters waking up, Hangover 1 and 2-style, from yet another debauched party with something clearly amiss. But ironically, coming this late in the game, the moment feels like a slap in the face. It’s a taunting reminder of the movie we might have had, instead of this turgid, unfunny catastrophe.”
– Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
10. “The good news is that Ed Helms doesn’t wake up in a Tijuana brothel with an amputated leg and a donkey in the room. The bad news is that you’ll wish he had.”
– Joe Williams, St. Louis Post Dispatch
11. “With Alan and Chow in command, ‘Part III’ tries to trump the previous two films by exponentially exploiting their shtick to such a point that quickly loses its appeal. Chow must be one of the most obnoxious characters ever written for film and Ken Jeong rams every crude and vulgar gesture or remark right down the audience’s collective throat.”
– Justin Craig, Fox News
12. “Chow is actually an apt metaphor for the movie — indescribably irritating and only in it for the money.”
12.5. “I’m not sure who let the dogs out this time, but they should be made to pay. Or forced to suffer the fate of the giraffe in the ubiquitous trailers — the one whose long, lovely neck won’t clear the low clearance bridge. The giraffe is only a portent of bad things to come.”
– Betsy Sharkey, L.A. Times
13. “The first ‘Hangover’ was good dirty fun; the second was dirtier, and less fun. But the third? It’s just a chore – and no hair of the dog is going to make it any easier to bear.”
– Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
14. “This is an ugly, angry picture.”
– Soren Anderson, Seattle Times
15. “‘The Hangover’ giveth and ‘The Hangover’ taketh away…Save a few intermittent chuckles, ‘The Hangover Part III’ is a grating, depressing experience. Mostly, I felt sad for Cooper, Helms, and Galifianakis, who do not look like they’re having a very good time. Like their characters, the actors are trapped in this unending nightmare — held hostage by a franchise that gave them everything and now demands payback.”
– Matt Singer, Screen Crush
16. “Even the racist zingers feel like pulled punches: ‘We’re looking for an Asian guy. He’s short.’ ‘They’re all short.’”
– Roger Moore, Chicago Tribune
17. “Unlovable, asking the audience not just to laugh at all this meanness but to actively identify with it. There’s nothing in the film’s world to contradict the self-satisfaction of its characters…Phillips is zero percent interested in exploring the narcissism of his characters, as long as they arrive back exactly at the point of departure.”
– Chris Packham, L.A. Weekly
18. “It seems to have one goal: to be so dark, nasty and joyless that audiences won’t want ‘Part IV.’”
– Rafer Guzman, Newsday
19. “What makes you laugh? Are you tickled by jokes caricaturing Asian people, about how they speak English with an obnoxious accent and spit impolitely? Can you not help yourself when a man does something totally out of pocket, like show an unacceptable amount of affection toward another man, or indicate interest in a large woman? Might you be interested in a joke about Jews? If you’ve answered yes to any of the above, you could enjoy ‘The Hangover Part III’…This is one of the stalest comedy screenplays in recent memory, and you can watch a bunch of actors with proven skill phone it in. If you’re into that, give The Hangover Part III your money.”
– Ross Scarano, Complex 
