Penis Galore: The Hangover : Part 2 - Official Trailer [HD]

Producers and execs: "Okay, so we made hundreds of millions with the last one. How do we top it?"

Answer: "Why, with penises, of course!"

One can almost hear the conversation unfolding in th Warner Bros. "Situation Room". Faced with honing the formula without making it unrecognizeable, director Todd Phillips and writers Craig Mazin and Scott Armstrong set out to exploit th still considerable shock power of the male organ. This time, when the guys wake up with temporary amnesia after a night of pre-nuptial debauchery, they find themselves in a Bangkok dive; instead of tiger, they're greeted by a monkey and, shortly thereafter, by the partially obscured penis of "international criminal" Mr Chow (Ken Jeong) with whom they hada drug-related run-in in the first movie.

Needless to say, the situation snowballs rapidly from there: Stu, the dentist, and the groom in this instance, has a tattoo on his face; Alan, the zany-raunchy idiot-savant of the first movie now has a buzz cut in contrast to his  bushy sideburns and beard, and Phil.....well, more on him later.

The challenge this time around is to find Stu's future brother-in-law, Teddy (Mason Lee, the son of "Brokeback Mountain" director Ang Lee), himself the favoured son of the Thai immigrant family that Stu is set to join.

the quest for Teddy leads through Bangkok's seamy nightlife, where one the city's notorious "lady-boys" (let's call them "intersexuals" - female faces, breasts and  - you guessed it - ding-a-lings) confesses to  a night of wild abandon with Stu with the following classic zinger: "I shoot load in you, you shoot load on floor." Bradley Cooper, as Phil, takes on the role of straight man with even more assurance than he did two years earlier and Zach Galifianakis smartly tweaks his "stupid is smart" schtick to suit the needs of the new locale.

Armed with that knowledge they journey from Bhuddist monastery to city centre high-rise to riverside cafe until the mission is accomplished. But whilst the film's pace is zippy, and the scenes in which Mr Chow - inevitably - reappears are almost worth the ticket price, a good portion of the thrill is understandably gone from this sequel. That air of "will they or won't they make it?" has essentially been replaced with "what other crap will they get into now?" The waste of Paul Giamatti, as an undercover Interpol agent, is almost unforgivable.

Still, if you're a big  fan, this extension of Hollywood's newest franchise offers just enough high-speed chase, ridiculous culture clash and super-raunch to meet your expectations. The rest will be scratching their heads every so often and wondering, in the words of the cast....."What tha --!"