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Anchorman 2: Channel 4 News Team set to Reassmble

28 Mar

‘Ron Burgundy’ stops by Conan to play the jazz flute, and announce that the sought after Anchorman sequel is a go

Will Ferrell, er, ‘Ron Burgundy’ stopped by Conan tonight to insult the lanky, red-headed host, and dropped a breaking news bulletin that the very-much-sought-after sequel to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, is indeed a go. In the clip below, which was leaked hours before the talk show’s airing, the well-groomed newsman came out playing a little jazz flute, mocked Conan’s personal appearance, praised sidekick Andy Richter’s mojo, and dropped the sequel nugget that made fans and Facebook all aflutter.

While appearing solo and with no mention of the rest of the cast, Deadline.com announced earlier that the film was on, and will be returning stars Paul Rudd, Steve Carrell and David Koechner, to round out the supporting cast. No word on whether Christina Applegate will return as love interest ‘Veronica Corningstone’, but details are still few, and if proper sequel etiquette stays in tact, there will probably be a new leading lady to capture ‘Burgundy’s’ heart.

Now, what will the film be like? Again, no word yet, but a 2011 article quoted Ferrell as saying executives at Paramount were “being idiots” for passing on the idea of shooting a sequel, and if there’s any truth to the rumor that the new film was to be set on a moon base in space, I kinda don’t blame the studio. However, it begs the question, what movie sequel formula will the new ‘Anchorman’ follow? Here’s a suggested list:

-Take it where the last movie left off, and set it in the high-powered 80′s
-Set it in the NOW, and call it ‘Grumpy Old Anchormen’
-Pull an Austin Powers 2 and add a time-travel element
-Pull a Caddyshack 2 and have the news team open up a miniature golf course
-Pull a ‘Baywatch Nights’ and have the news team open up a paranormal detective agency
-Or, (sigh)….set the whole thing in space

Whatever they do, they probably shouldn’t mess with the formula too much. People loved the characters because of the element we found them in, and the whole movie was basically a rip on the gloriously gaudy decade of the 70′s (Ron Burgundy making ‘rich mahogany’ jokes in any other setting just wouldn’t feel as apropos). So, my suggestion, set it in the 80′s, push the sleeves up on your blazers, and have fresh take on a new decade that is just rife with comedy/parody. Only time will tell, but until then, stay classy Moon Base Number 4 (see, that just doesn’t sound right!….).

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Will It Suck is on the Radio!

11 Nov

Listen Live every Friday at 12:40pm ET/11:40pm CT for the weekly radio segment, where Josh from Will It Suck? breaks down the weekend’s new movies, based solely on the trailers. Hosted by The Steve Cochran Show on The Big 550 KTRS. Tune in Live Here!

Steve Cochran - even better looking in person!

And if you missed it, check back every afternoon here to listen to the replay.

In Theaters This Weekend: Summer Movie Season is Over, Part II

19 Aug

Last week we claimed that the summer movie season was over. Every year, twice a year, Hollywood dumps the dead corpses of rotten movies on us, and much like the rubbish we got just after New Year’s (does Nicolas Cage ring a bell?), the end of summer is always signaled by studios giving up, and giving us trash movies that just had no chance of standing up to any movie that came out between May 1st and July 31st (and that includes The Smurfs). Last week we thought we were hitting rock bottom with stoner comedy 30 Minutes or Less, and what we can only hope is the final Final Destination movie. However, we might have called it too soon. Yes, as Hollywood always does, they’ve topped themselves this week, with an even larger (4 movies), smellier trash heap, and they expect us to continue to buy into this. No thanks, but without further ado, let’s take a look at how low Hollywood can go.

Almost as reliable as the mail, a throwaway movie in Hollywood is almost always a remake, either of a famous TV show your parents watched in the sixties and seventies, or a cherished, albeit cult film, from the 80′s. So, no doubt this week, we get two of them; one’s a vampire flick looking to capture the teen audience, and the other is a remake of Conan the Barbarian, which will likely be seen by nobody. In the “there’s a monster living right next door” movie category, Fright Night came out in the mid-eighties, to an audience clamoring for campy horror movies like Friday the 13th and the Nightmare on Elm Street series; it wore its camp on its sleeve, and grew a cult following from kids growing up on catching it on TV and video. The remake, which stars Colin Farrell and up-and-comer Anton Yelchin, doesn’t quite cheese it up, and doesn’t quite capture that fun that a cult film usually needs to garner repeat viewings. Looking almost exactly like Disturbia (starring another young Hollywood darling, Shia LaBeouf), we can’t say this would completely suck, but let’s face it, if we wanted to watch a movie like Disturbia, then we’ll just re-watch that one, and politely pass when people ask if we want seconds. Conan the Barbarian, however, is a remake that deserves as little attention as possible, mostly for the fact that it wasn’t screened for critics, and if they put such little faith in a film they reportedly blew $90 Million on, they should learn to save their money and reinvest it in their R&D department, so maybe a good movie idea might have a chance to make it to the screen someday.

That day seems like a decade away, as the other two movies opening this weekend are a Spy Kids sequel (the 4th in the series), and an Anne Hathaway/Jim Sturgess movie that is what Beyond Sunrise/Sunset would’ve looked like if Richard Linklater was a lazy S.O.B. Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D is a candy colored entry in the popular Spy Kids series, but people, will you never learn, it’s the rule of 3 – from art, literature, and sometimes even movies, everything is better in 3′s. How popular are movie trilogies? Very popular. Now tell me, what’s a great movie series that has 4 installments? Whoah, whoah, just give me one, please. And don’t get me started on the “in 4D” portion of the title, and yes, that is part of the title of the movie. Yes, we all know tacking on 3D to your film is going to make it easier to market toward idiots, but if you already name your 3rd installment Spy Kids 3-D, well, you’re kinda out of luck. And unless you can explain in-depth Euclidian geometry, or demonstrate the 4th dimension in spacetime, you shouldn’t be allowed to tag “4D” onto the end of your movie title. And as for Anne Hathaway and her horrible English accent in One Day, a movie about two people who are in love with each other (but don’t know they’re in love with each other), who meet one day a year for 20 years, we just have to say please stop now, and thank the stars we don’t have to revisit this junk once a year, every year……..

……it’s actually two weekends a year, and if the trend is to keep spreading the summer movie season trash heap over several weekends, making it to the Fall movie season is going to be a rough journey.

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Hi-Ho Budgets, Away!: Plug gets pulled on the Johnny Depp backed “Lone Ranger” project

16 Aug

Inflated budget cited as main reason, despite star-studded cast and crew

Inflated budget shuts down production of Johnny Depp backed Lone Ranger movie
As a sort of omen, or sign of the times, the critic website Pajiba.com just posted a list of the 25 Biggest Box Office Bombs, and reading over the list of movies (Gigli, $81 Million loss, The Alamo, $141 Million loss),  one of two things occur to you – a) how did this movie ever get greenlit in the first place?, and b) how did they convince the studio to give them so much money to make it?! And while it’s reasonable to see how a big budget can run away from you, like in the case of adventure movies like Speed Racer ($110 Million loss) or Cutthroat Island (#1 with $142 Million in losses), with their special effects costs ballooning out of control, it’s almost mind-boggling when you hear how a CGI-free romantic-comedy like 2001′s Town & Country ($120 Million loss) could cost so much, or why anyone would sink $100 Million dollars into The Adventures of Pluto Nash, when it was so clear no one would go see this movie (total U.S. gross – $4.41 Million).

Am I really the only one who saw this coming???.....

Maybe it was the freewheeling 90′s, or the spend-happy 2000′s that’s to blame for this, but clearly Hollywood, much like the rest of America, is realizing it’s time they stop wasting so much money. Hence news this week that the new Johnny Depp-backed Lone Ranger movie was getting the axe, not for artistic differences, not because of scheduling conflicts, but because the movie was just going to cost too much to make, and frankly, there wasn’t enough faith in getting it all back. According to Deadline.com, the film, which was actively in the casting stage, and already had Depp (as Tonto), Armie Hammer (Lone Ranger), and director Gore Verbinski already attached, was asking for a reported $250 Million budget, had conceded to start shooting for $232 Million, but in the end, just couldn’t meet Disney’s $200 Million limit, and was tentatively shut down until further notice.

Now, whether the production will grow legs from here is yet to be seen, with the option of shelving it until another studio comes along to cover the costs, or they strip it down to meet a more reasonable budget, but the one clear question from all of this is, how in the world could this film possibly cost this much money to make? With the source material being a TV show with a shoe-string budget, a Western where little (or no) costly CGI would be in play, and sparse settings in empty brushland totalling a whopping $275 Million by some estimates, one has to wonder where does all the money go when making a Hollywood movie? Unless the plans were to use CGI horses, a CGI background, while pasting a CGI mask full-time over the eyes of Armie Hammer, it’s just ridiculous and bombastic to to say you cannot film this movie for under $200 Million dollars. When you consider Titanic would only cost $247 Million by today’s inflated rates, it’s hard to feel sorry for a production who can’t seem to rangle in their inflated costs, when you can’t visibly see where that money would possibly go.

Even as a precocious teen in 1997, I could see the inflated costs of Titanic setting a Hollywood precedent of bloated budgets, so it’s nice to see a studio pushing back, saying, “Make it work and under budget, or we just won’t do it.” Now, if only the Federal goevernment would take a page out of Disney’s book…

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In Theaters This Weekend: It’s safe to say, summer movie season is over

12 Aug

Summer movie blockbuster season always brings big films to theaters, and frankly, it’s pretty much the reason we exist; all year long we go and see crappy film after crappy film, just to catch a glimpse at the trailers for the big-budget action/comedy/dramas that always tag on to the end “Coming this Summer…”. Well, it’s now August (mid-August at that), and we’ve already gotten our Pirates of the Caribbean, our Harry Potters, Transformers, and Captain Americas, but now it’s time for the hangover (and I’m not talking about The Hangover Part II) – the summer movie leftovers, which, much like stale popcorn left in the popper, are sure to leave us with a bad taste in our mouth.

30 Mintues or Less starring Jesse Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari
And speaking of bad taste, first up this weekend is 30 Minutes or Less, the new stoner comedy from the same guy who brought us Zombieland. Starring Michael Cera (I mean, Jesse Eisenberg) as a pizza delivery boy, and comedian Aziz Ansari as his more responsible, yet still immature, school teacher roommate. Based on a true story, Eisenberg gets kidnapped while out on a delivery, his tormentors strap a bomb to his chest and say “if you don’t rob a bank for us, we’ll blow you up,” which set into motion a series of zany events, and no doubt, comedy ensues. However, in real life, the bomb the kidnappers strap to the pizza guy blows up, and ”hilarity” did not ensue that day. Why the producers and director thought this was a good idea for a movie, I still do not know. But as far as the movie itself goes, it seems like instead of handing out 3D glasses at the theaters, they should pack the crowd a couple bowls, and liberally pass them around. Starring stoner-friendly actors Danny McBride and Nick Swardson as the kidnappers, the pedigree of this movie convinces me that it will come off just like Pineapple Express – a series of dick jokes, followed by some gross out comedy, some light action, a very angry and foul-mouthed McBride (does he play anything else?), a bit more action, and in the end, everyone ends up where they started. Case-closed. Swardson and Ansari are both funny frat-guy comedians, Eisenberg can act when he wants to, but when it boils down to it, the premise suffers from a “too soon” stigma based on the source material, and the comedy is just too stupid to overcome the underlying fact that this has actually happened before, and someone (pardon my choice of words) bombed once already when attempted. Save it for a late night on DVD, order some pizza, get high, and contemplate your own options when the dude comes to the door.

"Lasik Eye Surgery" as depicted in Final Destination 5
The next big movie opening up this weekend is Final Destination 5. Now, despite the fact that this is the fifth movie in the franchise, and comes off as tired and trite, with characters I could really have less interest in, who are getting murdered in the most ”is this really all you could come up with?” ways (lasik eye surgery, accupuncture sessions), its not the movie so much I have a problem with, but the fact that the movie was even made, and the title of the film. Now pardon me as I play semantics, but wasn’t the previous movie in this series called The Final Destination, and when you number the movies before that as Final Destination 2, and 3, doesn’t that imply that when the fourth installment comes around, if you don’t name it Final Destination 4, and you call it THE Final Destination, that maybe you’re insinuating that this is the LAST movie in the series, there will be no more of them, hence this is THE FINAL Destination? Isn’t that what that means??? Well, apparently not in this case, and apparently THE FINAL Destination made enough money for the studio to say “Forget what we said – let’s make another one. And if that one does well, let’s make two more after that.” Not to mention that the movie is going to be a complete trainwreck that even these death-dodging kids can’t avoid, Hollywood should start labeling these movies as “Teen Money Wasters”, as they’re solely creating a product in order to turn a quick profit, rather than putting just a little thought and effort into making a slightly interesting film. I would make a deal with Death himself if he could get me out of having to sit through this.

Emma Stone in The Help
And as a sort of afterthought here, a movie that might actually be decent, had we any energy left to actually discuss it, is The Help, starring the ever ubiquitous Emma Stone, who is rivaling Jason Bateman for the “Who can be in the most movies this summer?” award. Based on the insanely popular (with women) novel, Stone stars as ‘Skeeter’, a newly graduated journalism student from Ole Miss, who tackles the sticky subject of Civil Rights in the early 60′s, and fights for the rights of the black maids in her small southern town, rather than rejoin her ‘Southern Belle’ roots. A completely predictable storyline that people who watch “Oprah” and “Live with Regis and Kelly” are going to love, but frankly, we don’t want to see anything this weekend, and we’ll pass on this until our girlfriends make us watch it on DVD. 

Summer is coming to an end, and so are the good movies, so excuse us for being a bit jaded this weekend. That chill in the air is just a sign of dark days to come…..horrible Halloween inspired scary movies! Ugggghhhh…..

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First Glimpse: Anne Hathaway as ‘Catwoman’ official pics

11 Aug

The new cat suit is raising eyebrows, but not for reasons that you’d think…

Filming has officially started on The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan‘s final installment in the Batman franchise, so of course, pictures are starting to leak. But the first official release from Warner Bros. of the new ‘Catwoman’ Anne Hathaway, fully suited and acting up, is causing a stir in the nerd community because its….well, kinda lame. Whether or not you’d want to see Anne Hathaway in a barely there suit (I for one have never found the woman ‘sexy’ by any means), the role of Catwoman has grown to epitomize female sexuality at its vampiest, and the picture we got was less than that:

From what we gather, it looks as if the Cat has either commandeered Batman’s ‘Bat-Pod’, or is just borrowing it with the Dark Knight’s permission, and looks to be heading into action, but the suit that we see is little more than a head’s-up wraparound visor, and an ill-fitting leather jumpsuit. There are no ears, no visible whip, and if kitty’s got claws, they’re obviously retractable. So what does this mean in the pantheon of memorable “Catwomen” portrayals?

Well, so far, absolutely nothing. Hathaway herself has come out to address the issue of lackluster reception to the suit, and has stated to MTV that early detractors need only wait for the release of the film to see what the suit can actually do:

“What I am happy to say is: If you didn’t like the photo… you only see about a tenth of what that suit can do,” Hathaway said. “And if you did like the photo, you have excellent taste.”

So obvious bias aside, and that is taking into account Hathaway can be trusted, hopefully this one shot, from this one angle, is just one way the character appears onscreen. Who knows what Nolan has up his sleeve, and who’s to say that this isn’t just her “tactical” suit – like a motorcycle jacket intended for controlled slides. She could rip the outer layer off like snap-pants, to reveal a sexy corset, or some sort of thigh high/garter belt system. But then again, knowing Nolan’s style for gritty realism, this might be a “functional” suit; you know – something a real catburglar might tend to wear. Whatever we end up getting in the end is still to be seen down the line, and I am one to devote blind faith to Nolan’s track record when it comes to all things Batman, but you gotta admit so far the initial reaction is “non-plussed”, and it certainly doesn’t bode well that The Hollywood Gossip is offering up a jacket from The GAP in its “Get the Look” section….

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New ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ trailer leaks

20 Jul

While we’re still confused an agitated that there’s already a Spider-Man reboot (less than 5 years after Tobey Maguire’s ‘Spidey’ ended), we can’t ignore that another big screen incarnation is hitting theaters soon, starring Andrew Garfield as the web-slinger, and Rhys Ifans as nemesis ‘Lizardman’. And on the eve of Comic-Con, a teaser trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man has leaked online, to get all the nerds primed and salivating (present company included).

Check it out and give us your take. We say it’s a darker take than Sam Raimi‘s ‘original’, and yet we can’t help but feel we’ve seen this movie before…

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In Theaters This Weekend: Harry Potter graduates Hogwarts

15 Jul

It’s been 10 long years, but we finally graduated college, got a job, and moved out of our parents’ attic. And just in time, too, because the final ‘Harry Potter’ movie is hitting theaters, and we’d feel pretty outgunned having to compete in today’s job market against a boy wizard. Nevertheless, the Potter saga, which began in 2001, is finally coming to an end after 8 films, and we couldn’t be happier. Not that we haven’t followed the movies or grown to love the loveable wizards and that cute little muggle girl, but because it’s time, and those kids aren’t getting any younger. However, Warner Bros. hasn’t taken this lying down, chopping the last film in two and stretching out the whole thing, squeezing every bit of money out of the rabid fans who have dutifully been shelling out their hard earned money on everything from tickets and tie-ins, to some of the weirdest merchandise ever seen outside of Japan. But not even Lord Voldemort is bold enough to try to take on that cash cow, as every other studio has bowed out this weekend, except for Disney and their very ambivalent attempt to tap into any trickle down ticket money for those too late to get into theaters this weekend. So , for all intents and purposes, this weekend it’s all about Harry.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 opens up nationwide to cheers and tears as the last movie in the series storms into theaters primed to set records and sew up the franchise. Sure to be a cultural touchstone for fans and pop culture junkies alike, the kids have grown into young adults and so have their loyal followers, and viewers shant be disappointed. After Part 1 came out last November to middling reviews, we’ve been waiting patiently for the finale, even more so, since the first half was so slow. But now, with all the exposition out of the way, we are set for nothing but action upon action, and that’s what we’ll get. With all the characters and plot points set in motion, all the pieces have been positioned on the board, and it’s time to unleash them upon Hogwarts in a battle royale. Will Harry take on Voldemort and perish with him in the fires? Will Ron Weasley and Hermoine finally kiss? And will Professor Snape prove that under all that black lies a heart of gold? If you’ve been a fan of the books, you probably already know all the answers, but moviegoers will delight in this last installment that’s sure to tie up all the loose ends, and sneak in a couple surprises at that. For true fans, the franchise is poised to go out on a high note as one of the best in the series, and for even the most casual movie buff who’s willing to do some light background reading, the show will prove to be a movie milestone as a textbook way to provide onscreen summer movie magic. Either way, the 2+ hour runtime will fly by, keeping you on the edge of your seat. If you sat through Transformers 3 over the Fourth of July weekend thinking the big summer blockbuster hit its peak, be sure that the summer movie season will last a least a few days longer. Don’t miss.

And as a complete afterthought, Disney, who lost out on the biggest movie franchise of the new millennium, is practically puking out a movie in the hopes that some poor family, somewhere, missed out on tickets to the final Potter film. But, in a move that’s almost defiant to the big budget light and magic of Potter, an all new Winnie the Pooh movie comes out this weekend, without CGI, without Pixar’s computers, and without any pretention whatsoever. Modeled in the same vein as the classics that built the “House of Mouse,” Pooh comes along hoping to snatch up the littlest of kiddie viewers who were born five years after the Potter series started, and just aren’t old enough yet to enjoy a sophisticated wizard movie. A classy and shrewd move on Disney’s part, at half the runtime and a fraction of the cost to make, the studio recognizes that pitting something against the boy wizard is a suicide move, so they’re planning on sneaking under the radar, and hopefully, will stand to make a couple bucks issuing a cheap movie that’s actually fun to watch and is getting pretty good reviews. For nostalgic reasons alone, the movie should have parents moving to introduce their kids to the pudgy yellow bear they grew up on, and if not, hey – they’re not out any money on an overblown kids film that stands no chance at making a dent on the one BIG movie this weekend.

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In Theaters This Weekend: One for the kids, and one…not so much

24 Jun

Some movies are expressly written with children in mind, whether they’re saccharine sweet flicks with a message, or straight up G-rated cartoons about a cute stuffed animal with a honey pot stuck on his head. Then there are movies that are NOT made for kids at all; movies that would actually do harm to a child who is just beginning to make sense of the world. This weekend, we get a little of both, with Cars 2 heading to theaters to entertain the kiddos with lots of bright colors and wholesome action, and then there’s Bad Teacher, a sequel of sorts to the foul-mouthed, nearly soulless Bad Santa. Hey, there’s a little something for everyone, right?

First off, let me just say I never saw the first Cars movie. I believe it was somewhere between thinking how un-cuddly a car made of steel and rubber would be, and me wondering how a society of automobiles could sustain itself without the use of opposable thumbs (or even hands for that matter); but somewhere along the line, they lost me. Now the cars return for another lap, and this time they’re going global, in a plot that takes them to France to compete in a grand prix, and throws a little espionage in to spice up the plot. Of course, the whole show is geared toward kids, especially young boys, who grow up on toy cars and a strange fascination fire trucks and construction equipment. Yet, I’m still left wondering how-in-the-world a world inhabited solely by cars managed to build such engineering marvels as the Eifel Tower, Big Ben, or even the city streets of Paris, which was laid out hundreds of years before a car, or motorized vehicle, was even invented. Now I know the movie has to be entertaining (it’s Pixar; how dare you question them), but I have to admit, these are questions that I just can’t overcome, and I will most likely never see this film. However, if you have kids, I highly recommend taking them to see it this weekend. They’re going to love it.

Now, on to something a bit more adult (but no less juvenile) – Bad Teacher. The film stars Cameron Diaz as a first-year teacher who quits her job to become a kept woman by a super-rich bore who doesn’t realize she’s only using him for his money. When the mother-in-law-to-be enlightens her son of this fact, Diaz is out on her ass, and forced to crawl back to her old job, after spending her summer break in a booze-induced bout of self-destruction. She proceeds to phone in the teaching gig, letting the kids watch movies everyday while she catches up on sleep, and plots her next wealthy victim, Justin Timberlake, playing it straight as a wholesome J.Crew-cut wristwatch heir who prefers forehead kisses to rolling around naked. As she saves up to buy new fake boobs to attract her man, she begins to realize that life is more than money, and the kids she barely knows the names of, are actually moldable minds that she might just be responsible for once the morning bell rings. With Jason Segel as a down-to-earth, pot-smoking gym teacher trying to break the bitch out of her, Diaz shows a bit of growth, without necessarily losing the potty-mouth that makes her a bit endearing. And while the movie is just okay, and glosses over a lot of stuff, it’s got a couple great lines, and should be worth your time if you just need to ditch the kid stuff and swim in the shallow end of a scummy summertime pool.

In Limited Release: If you can find it, we highly recommend checking out Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, the behind-the-scenes documentary the talk show host made during the nationwide tour he staged between talk shows. A gritty-at-times look at the funny man after he lost ‘The Tonight Show’, he bares all, as the depressed, control-freak that funny men most oftentimes are. If you want to see something adult that contains a bit of childish whimsy, O’Brien is never a let-down, and should prove that the real losers in the late-night wars was us, the viewers.

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In Theaters This Weekend: Memorial Day brings more of those summer sequels

27 May

Every year when the weather turns warm, we tend to look forward to our favorite things about the summer season. BBQ, hanging by the pool, and long summer nights are just a few things that come to mind. But with those unfortunately there also comes burnt food, burnt skin, and hungry mosquitoes. Same goes for the summer movies. For every blockbuster, Hollywood churns out a quick buck flick that looks to capitalize on audiences heading in droves to the theaters. And what is the one constant you can count on every year? Yes, that’s right – the summer movie sequel, and this Memorial Day weekend, we get two of them.

For all the problems that exist with the movie sequel, there are some upsides. For one, we’re already familiar with all the main characters, so establishing a relationship is not an issue. And if those characters charmed us once, chances are we’re going to give them a little leeway when it comes to the second time around, and that’s a good thing when it comes to The Hangover Part II. For a movie that brings back our perpetually red-eyed friends for another round of adventures the day after, they must think that we in the audience must be suffering from some sort of alcohol induced amnesia as well, because this second installment brings on a lot of déjà vu. Our friends Phil (Bradley Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha) are reunited two years after their Vegas hijinks to celebrate Stu’s (Ed Helms) wedding in Bangkok, Thailand, and after a low-key bonfire on the beach somehow goes awry, the gang (minus Doug) wakes up the next morning in a rundown hotel room in the heart of Bangkok, with no recollection of how they got there, and the bride’s underage brother missing. This is where the movie begins to follow the same arc of the previous installment: instead of Stu waking up with a missing tooth, he’s got a Mike Tyson face tattoo, and instead of a cute little baby with sunglasses, there’s a cute little monkey with a Rolling Stones jean jacket. Oh, and Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) is back for an encore to provide a bit of humor and to work as a much needed plot device. But if you enjoyed the first Hangover, you’ll inevitably like the second one; it’s essentially the same movie. The jokes are a bit more over the top and the plot is extremely predictable, but it’s fun to see the fellas back in action, and Zack Galifianakis is still on top of his game, so despite running the same road, we’ll still tie one on and join our three best friends for another round of “so what the hell happened last night?!”

Also opening up this weekend is another sequel that is leaps and bounds from The Hangover Part II – Kung Fu Panda 2. Back again is Jack Black as panda warrior Po, and his A-List warrior friends, voiced by Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen and David Cross. In the first one, Po trained with his kung fu master, but this time around he’s a seasoned pro, and must band together to stop a villain who plans to unleash a new weapon that would render kung fu utterly useless (my guess is the weapon is a firearm, which pretty much did end any kind of hand-to-hand combat). And while Po the panda is a formidable fighter this time around, he still bumbles his way through the movie, and of course there are plenty of fat jokes to fill in the gaps. A fun movie voiced by some of today’s comedic masters, but a sequel nonetheless, so look for more of the same.

In limited release: If you’re looking for something truly original this weekend, check out The Tree of Life, by director Terrence Malick. Starring Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain, the film follows the lives of a family with three boys growing up in the 50’s, and intercuts them with surreal scenes from this world and cosmic glories. Winner of the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Malick creates a beautiful movie that should be the cold salve on the hot sunburn of the summer movie sequels.

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