Tuesday, May 31, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Mixed messages in the marriage media 'Hangover sequel overdoses on crazy The Wolfpack's back in time for the wedding. (Ken Jeong, TV's "Community") In addition to the plot, a lot of once a fleshy blur against the Las Bangkok adventures the jokes are snide little references Vegas desert, is now a permanent to the first movie or just re-work- character, which makes him less border on depravity ings of the originals. Now Stu has funny. He made people laugh in the a face tattoo instead of a missing first place because he was random, By EMILY BOUDREAU tooth and it just doesn't have the but now that mystique is gone. d1h Daily Arts Writer There's never any reason to sus- pect that a sequel can't be as good, if not better, than the original movie. Just look at "Toy Story,"* "Harry Potter," "Lord of the Rings" and even Hangover "Pirates of the Part I1 Caribbean." But the minute Phil At Qualityl6 (Bradley Coo- and Rave per, "Limitless") Warner Bros. cracks open his eyes and finds himself sprawled across a tile floor in a cockroach-infested room in Bangkok, everyone remembers that there's a reason why nights resulting in that kind of a hangover are only supposed to happen once. "The Hangover Part II" is essentially a repeat of everything that happened in the first movie. Except this time, the wolf pack is in Thailand for Stu's (Ed Helms, TV's "The Office") wedding. But the friends misplace Stu's fiance's younger brother, Teddy, instead of Doug. None of them can remember the previous night and they must piece it together in order to make it same comedic value. A face tattoo is way more serious, regrettable and life altering than a missing tooth. In that same sense, "The Hang- over Part II" is much darker and way more twisted. Phil and Alan (Zach Galifianakis, "Due Date") find a finger in an ice bucket, which is not necessarily an indicator of a night that was wild in a good way. With the original, the gang's antics were believable - the guys were the three best friends, perhaps even your best friends. But in the sequel, they lose their bro-next- door quality. Stu, Phil and Alan become people nobody wants to party with out of fear of perma- nently winding up in a Thai prison with a face tattoo. Instead of fully committing to the turn toward the dark side, the movie tries to tame it and connect it with the more all- American Las Vegas scene, result- ing in an uncertain combination. The first movie was fresh and unexpected with Mike Tyson's tiger, taser-happy cops and strange Asian men popping out of trunks of cars. That element of surprise, so essential to comedy, is completely drained out of"The Hangover Part II." The strange Asian, Leslie Chao By MACKENZIE METER Daily Arts Writer Lately, I feel like I'm being followed. Not by a person or even an animal, but by an idea. I just can't seem to escape it. Everywhere I turn, I see wed- dings. I see them in movies, TV shows, songs, everything. Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily, but it's annoying. Just look at the frenzy created by a certain royal wedding - people got up at four in the morning to watch cover- age of two people from a foreign country exchange marital vows. Most girls dream of get- ting married one day. Some even start planning their wed- dings from an early childhood, which of course sets them up for big bridezilla meltdowns when their fairytale wedding dreams don't exactly pan out. I have never been one of those girls. I have no idea where, when or how I want to get mar- ried. I don't know if I will have a sweetheart neckline on my dress or whether it will have lace on it or what my "some- thing blue" will be. Does that mean I don't want to get mar- ried? Of course it doesn't. Just not any time soon. Even though it might sound like it, I am not picking on the idea of marriage, even though I'm sick of seeing it splattered on everything. I saw "Brides- maids" and I thought it was hilarious. I read "Something Borrowed" and I thought it was a very nice little story. Of course people live happily ever after and of course people fall in love all the time. Both of my big sis- ters did. But people - especially girls - are so focused on the end result of dating - marriage - that they forget to enjoy their time as independent people. Aside from college and the sin- gle years to follow, there is real- jy no other time e completely devot ourselves the bes lewe can be without worrying about anyone else - non blood-relat- ed, of course - in the process. And no matter what, it seems we are inundated with the thought of marriage at every click of the remote. Think "Say Yes to the Dress," "Shedding for the Wedding" and - the most horrifying of all - "Brid- alplasty" in which contestants are actually required to go under the knife in order to win a dream wedding. These things not only make young women feel like they need to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on their own weddings but also make women feel like they must measure up to an unattainable goal. Beyonce never mentioned it's also OK to not put a ring on it. I think that people are still so shaken by the recession that they turn to things like wed- dings because of the happiness they are associated with. Wed- dings mean love, a big party and a special celebration with fam- ily. Weddings are great. What people are forgetting, though, is the process necessary to get to the rehearsal dinner and the big white dress. There is a whole progression of dating, of making connections, of meeting fami- lies and walking through a little bit of life together before the big day comes. And people like to have someone walking next to them - when times are hard, it's so nice to have someone to lean on. However, this does not mean we should all race to the altar. That special someone will still be waiting and will step in when the timing is right. In the meantime, I cherish my independence. Being con- stantly inundated with images of matrimonial bliss (largely a result of the film and TV indus- try) makes me cherish that independence even more, but it also can make it difficult for me to just sit back and enjoy being young and free - something I hope to stay for a while. Looking for characters and plot? "Bangkok has them now." The one character who manages to preserve his integrity is Alan. And while he does do the same things he did in the first movie, like talk about the Jonas brothers and cause everyone that comes into contact with him to ques- tion his sanity, it works. With his shaved head and piercing stare, Galifianakis keeps Alan admirably quirky and awkward. However, as a character, Alan doesn't have much depth (he's there for come- dic purposes) and it is impossible to expect him to carry the movie alone. Sadly, it would appear the difficult project of making a movie on par with the first one. The cast was swallowed up and most of the "The Hangover Part II's" plot was lost in the streets of Bangkok.