The Revenge of Chow is was what the sub-heading of the movie title should have been. The movie has been panned by critics and i was worried it was going to be a duplicate of the second movie, all about memory loss and recollecting those into some sort of half baked storyline. To my surprise, it didn’t play out like that at all and it think I enjoyed it. Its a very heavy Chow centric movie with the guys having to travel from LA to Tijuana and back to Vegas to end the series.
The movie is kind of like Olive Garden where when you go as a teenager you’re amazed by the unlimited soup, salad & breadsticks , but as you enter your 20s you find that the food is corporate and unimaginative, and finally later on in life you realize that you really do enjoy their soup, salad and breadsticks and thats enough for you to go back.
The same thing goes for this movie where in the first movie you find the characters charming, hilarious and compassionate. The second movie tries for the big laughs via its physical humor, and sense that the writers aren’t even trying. In this movie as the finale you realize that the story line really doesn’t matter, and its the characters that you should be enjoying the whole time. Plus it doesn’t hurt to add in Melissa McCarthy to the gang.
Spoilers ahead!
So you might have seen this scene in the trailers of the movie and yes it doesn’t end pretty. My biggest complaints was that if you can imagine what happens in this scene is that you can image what the rest of the movie entails by just watching the trailer. I did find that a lot of the funnier scenes were already used it just left the movie to show you how it leads up to those specific scenes.
So what worked?
The whole gang is back together and there’s nothing funnier than just listening to their dialog between them. I believe the writers put in their best work when they get Phil, Stu, Alan, and for the most part Doug into a simple scene where they talk like their really friends.
Melissa McCarthy was a perfect fit for Zach Galifianakis love interest in the movie and stole every scene that she was in.
What didn’t work?
The physical comedy seemed to be thrown into movies in various scenes where they felt there was too much conversation going on and not enough action. Subtly is not their strong suit.
I know that the film makers realized how much bigger that Dr. Ken has become since the first movie, and he’s gotten some of the bigger laughs in the movie, but having a plot that surrounds the Chow character is way too much. He’s awesome in short bursts but i find his voice and intonations kind of annoying in long dialogs.
