A
film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net
Please
note: Obvious references to Animal House,
Porky's, American Pie, and Old School
will not be used in this review. Whether appropriate or not, those titles will
not appear.
During
the first ten minutes of Wedding Crashers,
we are treated to a display of the debauched antics that were staples in
comedies of the late 1970s and 1980s. Alas, it's only a tease. Pretty soon,
this movie settles into the comfortable groove of telling its story - a
by-the-numbers romantic comedy that's far too plot-heavy for its own good. The
jokes become farther apart and less funny as the filmmakers mistakenly believe
that we in the audience actually care about the characters and their romantic
entanglements. No cliché goes unused as the movie stumbles along its
predetermined trajectory. I'm not going to explicitly reveal the ending, but
if you have seen more than one romantic comedy in your day, you'll know what's
coming.
One
of my rules of motion pictures is that only a rare comedy can hold an audience
for more than 90 minutes. There's a reason why most humor-based motion pictures
are short: it's easy for this kind of film to wear out its welcome. Wedding Crashers is nearly two hours
long, and it would have been a more jaunty, jovial affair had the second half
of the movie been reduced by 50%. All of the so-called character building falls flat, and the morose, guilt-laden feelings
associated with the romantic
complications drag on forever. Plus, there's a disturbing scene of graphic violence
that has no place in a movie designed to make us laugh.
John
Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy
Klein (Vince Vaughn) are
professional wedding crashers. They appear uninvited at weddings, insinuate
themselves into the crowd by pretending to be obscure relatives of the bride or
groom, and partake of the open bar and hopefully open legs of the bridesmaids.
When the eldest daughter of Treasury Secretary William Cleary (Christopher Walken) is getting married,
John and Jeremy decide to pull off the mother of all wedding crashes. And it
works perfectly, except for three complications. John unexpectedly falls for
one of the bride's sisters, Claire (Rachel
McAdams), Jeremy becomes the object of another sister's (Isla Fisher) sexual stalking and the
mother of the bride (Jane Seymour)
decides to seduce John. The Secretary likes them so much that he invites them
back to a private party at his house, and they end up there for the weekend.
This gives John a chance to spend some time with Claire and size up the
competition: her burly fiancé, Sack (Bradley
Cooper). Meanwhile, Jeremy spends much of his time trying to avoid the love-struck
Gloria and her gay brother.
Too
bad she uses a body double for the sex scene. As the film's romantic lead, Owen
Wilson plays it straight. That leaves Vince Vaughn with all the funny scenes,
and he pulls most of them off. When Vaughn's on screen, at least during the
first 60 minutes, there's a chance Wedding
Crashers will deliver a laugh. Wilson is just boring. Worse, there's no
chemistry between him and his perky co-star, Rachel McAdams. McAdams (The Notebook, Mean Girls) is delightful, but she and Wilson never click, making
the romance that is central to Wedding
Crashers' success dead-on-arrival.
[Blogger’s
note: McAdams and Wilson still have no romantic chemistry six years later in Midnight in Paris (2011), but this time
it’s intentional.]
I
have previously stated that predictability isn't necessarily a bad thing in a
romantic comedy, but the film has to offer something to keep viewers
interested. Once Wedding Crashers'
humor has dried up around the half-way point, there's nothing left. All of the
good stuff - the raw jokes, the bare breasts, and the profanity-laden asides -
comes early in the proceedings. The only thing left for the final act is an
unfunny cameo by Will Ferrell, whom
we have come to expect more from. Then Wedding
Crashers climaxes with a scene that's embarrassing for all involved.
If
a film is going to be in bad taste, at least it should have the decency to
follow through on its convictions, rather than morph into something else.
Director David Dobkin (who worked
with Wilson in Shanghai Knights and
with Vaughn in Clay Pigeons) has
crafted something flabby and mushy. It offers plenty of belly laughs early on,
but the appeal is short-lived. It would be untrue for me to claim I didn't
laugh during Wedding Crashers, but
the longer the movie stayed on screen - outlasting its welcome by a
considerable amount - the less amusing it was. After a promising beginning,
this movie crashes and burns. [Berardinelli’s rating: ** out of 4 stars = 50%]
[Blogger’s
comment: I totally agree with Berardinelli’s review and rating. This film is an
embarrassment, and I cannot imagine that, fifteen years later, any of film’s
stars – Cooper, Ferrell, Fisher, McAdams, Seymour, Vaughn, Walken and Wilson -
look back on this experience with pride.]
Labels:
comedy, romance, satire, wedding
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