Hangover 2: Same shit, different year (and I mean SAME shit)

The Hangover still stands in my mind as one of the greatest comedies ever made. It is just so fucking good. The day it became available on On Demand cable I watched it 3 times, and at least once a day (if not more) every day after for the next few weeks. That movie is just full of comedic goodness, it never gets old.

I anxiously awaited the sequel with great anticipation, but also a bit of trepidation- how the Hell could you possibly follow a movie that good? A tough feat indeed that only few accomplish successfully; trying to recapture the magic of the original, balancing the tightrope of paying homage and still being fresh (Boondock Saints 2, for example).

The opening scene was nearly identical, shot for shot, right down to using a Danzig song. To me, that was a great move. There's no way you can come up with a better opening than the first one so why not use that same opening? It didn't come off as cheap or hacky, either, just the perfect tribute to a fantastic comedy. Sort of tipping it's hat to it's own roots.

But it was kind of downhill from there. There's a fine line between giving a nod to your predecessor and just lazily copying it. Let's check the scorecard:

• Stu's face fucked up? check
• Gotta find someone they lost? check
• Alan accidentally roofied them? check
• Ken Jeong's weiner? check
• Stu falls for a stripper? check
• Somehow in possession of a tiny mammal? check
• Ken Jeong leaps out of a small space and attacks them? check
• Stu sings a song about them as they retrace their steps? check
• Tyson? check
• Tyson singing? double check
• ending with "Hey guys, I found some pictures from last night" check

I realize the pictures at the end of the first one was one of the highlights, but if you're going to carbon-copy replicate the opening scene, you can't do it again at the end. Be creative for fuck's sake. Find a new way to do it. Just waaaaaaaaaaaay too copy-cat of the whole fucking movie.

Not horrible, but not worth $8. Don't get me wrong- it had some great moments, like Alan's flashback, but not enough of those moments to carry the movie. Wait for cable.

Priest. Not even a movie can make them cool

I actually had hope for this movie. It looked like it could be a really cool warrior-on-a-mission-to-save-the-people movie, set in an anachronistic, dystopian future. You expect a lot of "cheesy and ridiculous" in an action/horror movie like this, but Priest didn't have very much "cool" to balance it out. It's definitely one of those style-over-substance movies. Unfortunately, the style they ended up with- retro 80's soundstage- is about 25 years out of date.

From the looks of it, they tried to make a future reminiscent of Road Warrior meets Blade Runner meets Alien, but it ended up more like Metalstorm meets Spacehunter meets... I don't know, some shitty 80's monster movie. CHUD, maybe? If you've seen any of those movies, congratulations- you're a true child of the 80's and movie geek.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like it was a horrible movie. It was just kind of boring, which in a way is worse. A bad movie you can mock, make fun of, ridicule. A boring movie is just... kind of there. You don't care about any of the characters, or this world's humanity as a whole. There's no reason to really give a shit at all what happens to any of these people.

And that's really all you can say about this movie. It's just... there. Sort of like K-Mart, or Applebee's. Nothing to get excited about but not worth hating.