Question: When is a sequel NOT like a sequel?!

When you run dry of rehashing old material – Or when the filmmakers want to ‘seriously’ grapple and reroute the franchise into another direction. And sometimes (actually, make that every time a film series hits Part 3), it’s a combination of the two.

So, is it really that different when ‘The Hangover Part III’ drastically deviates from its own formula in a bid to climax the trilogy at a high note? Well, no. After all, its tagline does say “It All Ends”, “The End”, and “Epic Finale” – at times in a single breath.

It rolls like this then: three quarters of the Wolfpack – Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Doug (Justin Bartha) – plan an intervention on Alan (Zach Galifianakis)’s atrocious man-child, opting to drive him via a road-trip to an institute.

En-route, they get kidnapped by Marshall (John Goodman), who wants the group to track Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong), who escaped from his Thailand prison (apparently he and Alan were still trading e-mails). Mr. Chow, as it happens, had made off with Marshall’s $21 million – which Marshall by the way, nabbed from an Abu Dhabi Sheikh. Retribution, of course, is in the cards.

Let me clear one thing at this point: there is no ‘Hangover’ in ‘Part III’. The mantra here is tying-up loose ends with a budget and look that makes the movie a resolute, less flippant exploit than its predecessors. Kudos to director Todd Philips then, for making a full-on action movie; his – and perhaps the cast’s – separation from the routineness of the ‘Hangover’ cliché is a necessitated liberation. Mr. Philips turns a group of hung-over guys into semi action-men, whose call to action – and detective work – borderlines on being incredibly simplistic (at one point, the Wolfpack track the villain via an app on the phone; you can’t get more simple – and avant-garde – than that).

When ‘Part III’ stops being an action movie (there is a nail-biting comic sequence at the top of Caesars Palace, Las Vegas), the screenplay written by Mr. Philips and Craig Mazin (‘Part II’, Identity Thief) turns vindictive towards animals and PETA. Casualties are crude and un-amusing: a giraffe gets his head lobbed off at a highway, some fighting roosters are shot down and two guard dogs are drugged, and then have their necks snapped.

The uncouthness doesn’t stop there; Mr. Galifianakis’ Alan – and Mr. Jeong’s Mr. Chow are people we – and the rest of the Wolfpack – can see dead without any flickering of compunction. For the sake of the franchise, we don’t see Mr. Cooper, Mr. Helms and Mr. Bartha say this outright, but their expressions betray their feeling.

Alas, without Mr. Galifianakis’ infuriating incredulousness, uncaring, single-visioned, self-centered persona there is little of ‘Hangover’ to begin with. At least, with its ending, I can personally make peace with the fact that the trilogy really did end – once and for all; That is, until the credits made me think otherwise…

Directed by Todd Phillips; Written by Mr. Phillips and Craig Mazin (based on characters created by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore); Produced by Mr. Phillips and Dan Goldberg Cinematography by Lawrence Sher; Edited by Debra Neil-Fisher and Jeff Groth; Music by Christophe Beck. The movie stars: Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, John Goodman, Melissa McCarthy, Jeffrey Tambor, Heather Graham, Mike Epps, Sasha Barrese and Jamie Chung. Released by Warner Bros. and HKC. ‘The Hangover Part III’ is rated R. You never want to grow up to be Mr. Galifianakis’ Alan that much I can assure you.