The Hangover Part II (2011)

Same blackout, same missing guy, same frantic search, new zip code. The Hangover Part II is the original with the serial numbers filed off and a plane ticket to Bangkok, just meaner and sweatier. Todd Phillips takes the one character everybody found exhausting, Mr. Chow, and gives him way more screen time, which is the opposite of what anybody asked for. Ed Helms’s face tattoo gets more laughs than most of the script. The monkey is a better actor than half the extras. Paul Giamatti shows up looking like he wandered in from a better movie, then wanders right back out. It still made $586.8 million worldwide, more than the first, on a reported $80 million budget, so the formula clearly printed money. A 35% on Rotten Tomatoes and a movie.guru score of 4.4 feel about right. A 4.1 because a copy of a copy loses something every time, and this one lost the surprise. $4,731 says inside a week you mix up which scene happened in which movie.

What works: Ed Helms commits hard to Stu’s meltdown, and a couple of Bangkok chase scenes have real momentum.

What doesn’t: It repeats the first movie beat for beat, trades the surprise for meanness, and hands Mr. Chow far more time than the joke can carry.

Who it’s for: Superfans who wanted the exact same night again, in a hotter city, with a monkey.