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Trouble is, the scene isn’t funny. His action – slipping a plastic bottle under the robes of a Buddhist monk so that it resembles an erection – is completely unmotivated, and the fact that the gag hinges on an old Asian man and a trained animal leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.

Mind you, that’s nothing compared to the scenes in which the same monkey smokes a cigarette. That’s going to have them rolling in the aisles! Or how about the utterly random fantasy sequence in which preteen lookalikes for stars Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms cavort with hookers, drink booze and snort coke… Hilarious!!

Is debauchery and depravity all it takes to makes us laugh these days? If so, then audiences will lap up “The Hangover Part II” like dogs to last night’s vomit. But I don’t think so. This uninspired retread misses the originality and emotional integrity underpinned in the first film, which propelled its quartet of up-and-comers into starring roles.

This time it’s the dentist, Stu (Helms), who is about to tie the knot. His intended is Lauren (Jamie Cheung), whose family insists on a wedding back home in Thailand. Although sensible Stu has no interest in a bachelor party, he does agree to one beer on the beach with his best friends Phil (Cooper), Doug (Justin Bartha) and Alan (Galifianakis) – plus brother-in-law-to-be Teddy (Mason Lee, son of Crouching Tiger director Ang Lee).

Next thing you know (though it falls a long half an hour, or nearly a third of the way into the movie) they’re waking up hundreds of miles away in some roach-infested Bangkok hotel, with a monkey, a finger and a severe case of collective amnesia.

Piecing all this together is much less amusing second time around, in part because it’s frankly unbelievable that the same stuff could befall the self-same guys. But mostly because new screenwriters Craig Mazin (Scary Movie 4), Scot Armstrong (School for Scoundrels) and director Todd Phillips never come up with a compelling reason for any of it to transpire. The first movie was intricately plotted and revealed as much about the characters as it did about the fleshpots of Vegas. This one has been slapped together almost at random; the too-boring-to-follow plot involves a gun-running deal, rival gangsters, and a street riot (we never do find out what caused that, but you can be sure it’s nothing to do with the anti-government protests that rocked Thailand not so long ago.)

An episode with a Thai “lady-boy” does push taboos a bit further than you would expect in a mainstream Hollywood entertainment, and without the obnoxious homophobic element that marred “The Hangover”, but save for a few loopy interventions from the always game Galifianakis, it’s dismaying just how few laughs Cooper et al manage to generate. It says something for the film’s flabby self-regard that Mike Tyson is invited to come on and sing. I guess it could have been worse. It could have been Mel Gibson…