"A wedding marks the first day of the rest of your life. You have been dead until now. Were you aware of that? You're dead right now."...( read more)ed a plain comedy either. As a satire of the bloated wedding industry, it also fails. As a drama about friendship and triumphing over all, it still fails. It'd probably be best to classify it as "an affront to God". Yeah, that works. Now, speaking in general, chick flicks can work if they are sharply written and amusing, but in the case of Bride Wars...RUN! RUN THE FUCK AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN! If a friend tries to force you into watching it with them, fake a coronary if you have to in order to get yourself out of there. Otherwise you'll be stuck watching the worst movie you've endured for a long time; yearning for a spare moment when you can commit suicide using the television remote or a nearby blunt object. Bride Wars is predictable, offensive and mundane, and entirely devoid of humour.
It's difficult to classify Bride Wars. It fails as a black comedy. It's not even remotely funny either, so it can't be consider
The film follows lifelong best friends Liv (Hudson) and Emma (Hathaway). Since they were little girls, the two have shared the same dream: a storybook wedding in June at New York's Plaza Hotel. Now in their mid-20s and engaged to nondescript men, the day has come to book the event at the desired venue. Through circumstances too sketchily explained to go into, both Liv and Emma are accidentally booked at the Plaza for the same day at the same time, and the next available slot is three years down the line. Neither of the women will relinquish their fantasy ceremony, so war is declared... And they have absolutely no problem tearing apart a friendship that has lasted so long.
Renowned critic Roger Ebert once coined the phrase "Idiot Plot" to describe the type of story that could be resolved if only the characters stopped being morons. Bride Wars spins off this notion to offer the "Jerk Plot", with a storyline that could be easily resolved if only the characters stopped being assholes. The women aren't willing to do a double wedding (the most logical option considering they are lifelong best friends), or do anything rational that might clear up the conundrum in 10 seconds. The set-up is just a flimsy excuse for a succession of lame revenge sequences, as the two women desperately try to sabotage each other's upcoming nuptials. This is where Bride Wars falls apart the most: the screenplay (courtesy of June Diane Raphael and Casey Wilson) is packed with the dumbest and least inventive schemes. The other problem is that the screenwriters never develop the nerve to create the dark, nasty comedy the movie should have been. The tricks are nasty, but not cruel enough to work as inspired black humour - most are on the level of a subpar Punk'd episode.
Bride Wars is ultimately a numbing, excruciating, artistically bankrupt motion picture. Above all, it's a movie which mistakenly believes viewers will want to like these characters... But we end up hating them instead. And why not? They're mean-spirited, irrational and obnoxiously unlikeable. Even before they begin bitching and scheming, they still come across as superficial twits no-one would like to spend time with, let alone marry! By the time the third act is reached and the treasured/feared wedding day arrives, the screenplay sidesteps all the countless possible endings in order to present a copout conclusion that fails to satisfy on every conceivable level, and replaces the attempts at gags with attempts at sympathy for these detestable characters. For the most part, the grooms are forgotten throughout the movie, but are occasionally allotted screen-time in which they try to offer commonsensical advice before being inevitably shot down. Furthermore, this reviewer found the male positions far more rational and credible than those espoused by their brides-to-be.
Anne Hathaway does fare better than Kate Hudson (who looks distractingly odd throughout the entire movie), but neither are able to make their characters remotely endearing. One can't help but wonder how much longer Hudson will remain a viable leading lady given the string of indefensible comedies she has starred in over the last several years.
At the helm of Bride Wars is Gary Winick (Charlotte's Web, 13 Going on 30), who aggravates the flaws with a generic style punctuated by terrible decisions. The director operates on chick-flick autopilot here (much like the actors), assuming shots of Hudson with blue hair will trigger laughs, and that dialogue about Vera Wang wedding gowns will be sufficient to win over female viewers. Meanwhile the one-liners are strictly in PG territory, which means they're neutered to the point that they're uninteresting. There are also attempts at physical comedy that never comes close to triggering an outbreak of laughter. Furthermore, the movie tries to balance the all-out bitch-fest with a moralistic parable about the value of friendship. But in the end, it fails to satisfy. Everything about this film, from the gags to the messages to the cutesy last scene, feels numbingly obvious.
The problem is not that the characters are shallow and mean. The problem is not that they allow their own selfishness to control their behaviour. In a well-crafted black comedy, these elements are pluses. But Bride Wars is not a black comedy, nor is it well-crafted or clever or remotely enjoyable. Instead, it's so mean-spirited and so lacking in humour that the film cannot be recommend to anybody I don't feel like torturing.
Bride Wars
56%
liked it
Bride Wars
Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson, Bryan Greenberg, Candice Bergen, Chris Pratt
Liv and Emma are best friends who since childhood have planned every detail of their respective weddings. At the top of their bridal "must have" list: a ceremony at New York's ultimate bridal destinat...( read more
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Id: 10964999
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Recent Reviews
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November 29, 2009"A wedding marks the first day of the rest of your life. You have been dead until now. Were you aware of that? You're dead right now."
...( read more)
It's difficult to classify Bride Wars. It fails as a black comedy. It's not even remotely funny either, so it can't be consider -
August 7, 2009Sometimes you just plain get what you deserve. As a straight 21 year old male, I had only one reason to download Bride Wars and watch it on my iPod - Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are really, really hot. And I foolishly thought that a movie with the two of them would, if nothin...( read more)
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June 11, 2009I'll watch Hathaway in anything that's a given, but this film was a complete and utter mess. For devout fans only. Seriously Hudson step away from the romcoms.
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June 5, 2009It was an okay movie, one of those where you already know what to expect. It's a fun movie to watch with your close female friends, defintitely a chick flick.
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December 18, 2009well, this reminded me to my bestfriends>.<
great movies! i think perfect wedding is every girls' dream right? so both of emma and liv must felt hard when they have to give the date to each other in that condition. hahaha...happy ending finally =) -
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December 5, 2009Essentially its exactly what you'd think it'd be. The two leads are fun to watch but for the most part, its a cliched mess of a movie that barely kept my attention. But I like Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson, so I watched it.
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December 2, 2009I didn't expect so much about this movie. It was silly and kind of borring,
