The Best ... Best? ... Parts of The Hangover Part III

I'm not actually willing to say that The Hangover series should be laid to rest. After I named the original Hangover the best comedy of all-time and The Hangover Part II a solid 4 out of 5 stars, there's still a possibility more Hangovers wouldn't be the worst thing.

However, The Hangover Part III is a true stinker. While the Wolfpack is still somehow pretty cool, they can no longer command the same amount of laughs.

Here are the film's funny moments, in chronological order ...

1. The highway pileup created by the beheading of a giraffe, owned by one Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis).
2. Alan's singing at his father's funeral.
(A long stretch of a ridiculous and painfully unfunny kidnapping of the Wolfpack by John Goodman.)
3. Chow (Ken Jeong) and Alan's Tijuana kiss.
(At the halfway point, there had still only been three laughs. And that's being generous.)
4. The Melissa McCarthy lollipop/pawnshop scene.
5. The recurring Billy Joel soundtrack to Alan's life.
6. The Alan-and-his-son scene.
(Another very long unfunny stretch.)
7. The farewell scene when Chow tells Alan he's "cold as ice."
8. Alan's closing scene, when he announces he's leaving the Wolfpack.

So, obviously, Galifianakis still has what it takes to be brilliantly funny. But Ed Helms (zero laughs) is shockingly wasted and Bradley Cooper (maybe a half a laugh) is empty.

Galifianakis gets *** out of ***** stars, but The Hangover Part III itself spirals downwards for *1/2 out of ***** stars.

Cedar Falls, Iowa Lures Ed Helms for an Insurance Conference

If one things can be said about Ed Helms, he plays his type well. Basically the same square-dweeb turned party animal that he played in The Hangover and The Hangover II, Helms is Tim Lippe (pronounced Lip-y) in Cedar Falls, the name of this movie and also the location of the annual insurance conference that serves as the center of the action.

This is actually a brilliant concept for a movie. An insurance conference? The comedic possibilities seem endless. And while there could have been more fall-out-of-your-seat-laughing moments, the characters are so lovable that it's impossible to not get caught up cheering for them.

Lippe has never been on an airplane before, so the run-of-the-mill chain hotel seems like a wonderland to him. This is clear from the moment he arrives and hesitates to give the desk person his credit card for incidentals to the Chevy Chase-like moment when he and the gang break into the indoor pool in the center of all the rooms in the middle of the night.

He rooms with a seemingly slimy, but actually much deeper, John C. Reilly and straight man Isiah Whitlock Jr. And he gets in all kinds of situations with a winning trifecta of ladies, Anne Heche, Sigourney Weaver, and Alia Shawkat (from Arrested Development).

An interesting tidbit: Iowa, where the real Cedar Rapids is located, failed to secure the film a tax credit, so the whole movie was actually done in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Although Helms' never seems funny to me in late-night talk show interviews, his winning streak with The Daily Show, The Office, The Hangovers, and this movie is a thing of beauty.

***1/2 out of ***** stars

Meat Party Capped Off With The Hangover Part II

Apparently The Hangover Part II never had a fighting chance.

With a 35 percent score of critical reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, this is surely a pretty worthless movie. Except, by any other standards of comparison other than the first installment, this sequel would actually be bordering on riotous.

The beginning and the end are nearly as good as The Hangover, which is saying a lot, considering I ranked it the greatest comedy of all time. Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, and a capuchin monkey are particularly over-the-top funny.

However, the middle section in a nightclub, a tattoo parlor, and a Buddhist monk sanctuary are each lacking in inspiration and very slow. The producers could have done so much more. And the critics' complaints about how this is basically The Hangover Part I only in Thailand are certainly correct.

All that said, I certainly don't need my 90 minutes back. And reliving the original Hangover with my friends Gordie, Zak, and Brian for a Fogo de Chao Brazilian meat party really put Friday evening over the top.

**** out of ***** stars