Any serious drinker knows that feeling of waking up in the morning so desperately hungover you feel like a reanimated corpse, and the groaning, quivering vow to never touch the stuff again. That resolve usually only lasts until your dehydrated brain has forgotten the sensation of slamming up against your skull. Then it's, "Sure, pour me another!"
So it is with Hollywood sequels: We pay our money for "The Matrix: Revolutions," "Ocean's Thirteen" or — shudder — "Star Wars: Episode 1," and walk out feeling like we just met the dim-witted inbred cousin of a movie we really liked. We convince ourselves we won't get fooled again, but then along comes something like "The Hangover Part II" and, despite all common sense, we start thinking, "Hey, that could be pretty cool — like the first one."
Hope springs eternal, but "The Hangover Part II" is to "The Hangover" as Spam is to pig. To be fair, director Todd Phillips' sequel to his 2009 hit does provide some laughs, just not nearly as many as before. But can a film with a drug-dealing, cigarette-smoking monkey be all bad? (Hold that thought.)