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The Hangover

Movie Grade: A

DVD Features Grade: B

Overall Grade: A-

At first glance of the trailer, The Hangover seemed like you average, everyday, typical sensational comedy. It seemed like a senseless droll of thoughtless and pointlessly crude jokes in the fashion of the Rob Schneider comedies or something titled with a genre followed by the word “Movie.” What came off as the cinematic equivalent of eating pure sugar, ended up being more like fresh hot air popcorn: it was still a fun snack but not nearly as bad for you. With doubts strong enough to thwart any desire of mine to see the film, it is hard to emphasize how incredibly wrong I was about this hilarious comedy gem.

The plot is basic enough: Doug (Justin Bartha) is getting married, but is heading to Vegas the night before for his bachelor party. Along with him he has Phil (Bradley Cooper) who is glad to be away from his wife and kids for any period of time, Stu (Ed Helms) who is avoiding his uber-controlling girlfriend, and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) Doug’s socially awkward brother-in-law to be. The four guys plan on having a fun night on the town away from all the trouble and responsibilities of home, but have a bit too much fun and all wake up with no recollection of the night before, a trashed hotel room, a tiger in the bathroom, and absolutely no clue where Doug is.

Picking specific parts that seemed especially funny in the film almost seems difficult considering the density of quality humor throughout the entire film. It is even hard to pick notable cameos being that it seems like every famous person around Vegas at the time, with nothing better to do, just wander onto the set. People like Rob Riggle, Matt Walsh, Heather Graham, Mike Tyson, and sadly Carrot Top just to name a few. What the film manages overall is to take a simple, overdone, and very shallow humor and adds a new level of poise to it. Something indescribable comes together in the film that gives its lesser jokes leniency and makes its great jokes outrageously hilarious.

Despite the fact that the film was immaculate in almost every way, the features are nothing more than so-so: in tern making them somewhat of a letdown in comparison. The Map of Disaster and Gag Reel are both notable, particularly the Map of Destruction. This feature was a literal map allowing you to pick the different places they traveled to, giving a sort of behind the scenes look of how they created each incident; the gag reel is simply what it seems to be, but who doesn’t like a good gag reel? The rest of the features are all bland extensions of scenes from the film that could have easily been lumped together in one feature

labeled “deleted scenes.” It feels like almost being lied to by the box which boosts quite a number of features that falls into such a common niche. The Pictures form the Missing Camera is also a bit of a disappointment because the photos during the credits where really the cream of the crop, but this was just the ones that didn’t pack enough heat to make it into the credits.

These lack-luster features are something that you should really keep in the back of your mind when it comes to this DVD because overall it is well worth the purchase. It is easy to go as far as to say that this is absolutely the funniest film of the year and is well worth having in your collection. The humor is very adult, so if you are too smug to laugh at something of this material you won’t enjoy it, but anyone who can relax and enjoy a good racy laugh will find this to be right up their alley. For anyone who doesn’t fit this category, I sincerely apologize that you will be missing out on this side-splitting comedy.

Movie Grade: A

DVD Features Grade: B

Overall Grade: A-