Wedding Crashers

2006-10-25

All of these phrases describe Wedding Crashers.

One of the more infamous moments from Top Gear has Jeremy Clarkson drumming his fingers on the top of a (notoriously bland) Vectra for an entire minute, unable to think of anything to say. This film elicits the same lack of reaction from me. As I watch films these days I tend to take notes so I can write up reviews afterward. With this incoherent set of scenes I struggled to think of much to write.

Wedding Crashers is mild entertainment, and there some amusing scenes. But there aren’t any really funny ones. Vince Vaughan falls into the trap (as he has before) of being so deadpan you’re not sure if he’s trying to be humorous. But there aren’t any punchlines for him to carry it off anyway. The production values are hit-and-miss: some sequences are tightly edited, but in others the story just rambles. No favours are won with the first montage, which essentially introduces the wedding crashing concept, and just doesn’t flow. The football scene early in the film is bizarrely accompanied by Dave Brubeck’s ‘Blue Rondo a la Turk’ - that’s just weird. The cinematography is reasonable, but the script is hardly witty.

There are some nice moments - the ending is better than average for a romantic comedy, despite the mostly formulaic plot up to that point. There is a fuzzy feeling of completion as the pretty girls get the cheeky guys, and the bad guy gets his comeuppance. But I felt the same way about this film as I did about Dodgeball - we’ve seen it all before. Ultimately, it was a disappointment.

Comments

Well, to be fair, comedy is always a matter of taste. I just had a hard time spotting the jokes in Dodgeball :)
I quite enjoyed bits of dodgeball. Admittedly, it was the bits of comedy during the film and not the actual storyline which was entertaining.