It's Funny Because He's Fat

Welcome to the Agglomeration

Before I get into what will be a brilliantly planned out segue, I would like to point out I don't personally have anything against fat people. In fact, I would advise that people don't try to use the title of this post out of context just because I forgot to implement the highly revered punctuating tool, the quotation mark(s), and am too lazy to go back and put them in to indicate that it is indeed a quote from 'The Hangover', a movie which I saw yesterday with two of my friends and am planning to review now, just because that it is more important that the segue I planned out works perfectly.

What segue, you ask?

Exactly.

Onto the review.

The Hangover

The Hangover wasn't a film that I decided one rainy Thursday morning to go and watch because all my Geography homework was done because frankly I don't do Geography anymore or because I thought that it looked like a terrific movie. The Hangover wasn't a film that I had anticipated for several preceding months, watching diligently all the trailers and reviews in frenzied, impatient expectancy. The Hangover wasn't even a film that a certain friend among a group with whom I had organised a movie outing recommended to me, stating that it harnassed enough positive reviews from enough reputable sources to warrant my going to see this film. Oh wait, that's exactly what happened.

True to form, I checked this out with my good old friend Metacritic, who seemed to agree with my enigmatic but generally very tasteful friend. Satisfied that a mystery box movie was better than no movie at all, I went to watch The Hangover. And before I even give my opinion, my score, or any content to substantiate the above claims, let me quickly relay to you, the readers, the results of The Hangover when subjected to a newly introduced and before now, unique, but obviously not anymore, technique for film comparision and evaluation. Although it is really for the benefit of the only other reviewer to use this highly esteemed and invaluable technique, I will tell you all anyway that Yes, The Hangover did pass the 'Let's compare every single bloody movie we see to some arbitrary movie that is, in my opinion, crap and a waste of time, and therefore something that is guaranteed to see most movies pass, even randomly stupid ones about utterly inane cavemen on a quest to invent the wheel, but excluding ones about gay foreign models who are depicted by utterly inappropriate and icky actors who also favour portraying stupid and non-funny Kazakstanis...oh and let's call this arbitrary movie Knowing' test.

Moving right along.

As a comedy, The Hangover succeeds in its genre with aplomb. The jokes are consistently funny, and although there are no outstandingly fantastically amazingly magnificently ingeniously funny funny moments, there are enough memorable scenes that leave a good impression. For a comedy, the storyline is also very well written. It made more sense than most other comedies, and overall the plot didn't suffer because of a desire for cheap laughs. I had two small problems with it, however. Firstly, I hate the use of the flashback device. It kills suspense and almost always fails if not used correctly and extremely originally well, which is rare and which it wasn't here. However, what was surprising, was that this didn't actually make the movie that much worse for me, and neither did my second problem that I had with it. The ending. It had to be done, I realise, as nothing else would really fit, but it just seemed implausible in what was otherwise a mostly plausible film, despite obvious allowances made to vamp up the comedy aspect, of course.

The actors all did good jobs, portraying their characters convincingly and remarkably embellished where required. Special mention goes to Mr. Chow, portrayed by Ken Jeong, as probably the most memorable character. Despite a limited amount of scenes, he was given enough crude and over-the-top gestural leeway to make sure we don't forget him for a long time.

In conclusion, The Hangover was well written, well structured and overall as a package, a good movie for laughs. One of the best comedies I've seen for a long time, primarily because I generally hate comedies that are done poorly and avoid them like the Porcupine Man. 5 Points for the person who gets that reference. Luckily, The Hangover is no such fail comedy.

7.5/10

P.S First time in a while I saw trailers for 3 upcoming movies that look worth checking out. Drag me to Hell, Ingloureous Basterds and Sherlock Holmes.

Till next time, may you agglomerate all your unpremeditated contemplations