Review of The Big Wedding (2013) by Michael Z — 15 Aug 2013

If you get this invite in the mail, reject it. Reject it immediately! The Big Wedding is a big cast disappointment filled with off color jokes, juvenile sexual pratfalls, perplexing situations and relationships, ridiculous dialogue, dated material and off-putting or offensive moments.

The one thing it has going for itself is its respectable cast but they are so horribly misused and abused I have no idea why a single one of them signed up for this travesty. Robert De Niro (Cape Fear) and Diane Keaton (Father of the Bride) play divorced parents who are reuniting at a beautiful lake house for the wedding of their "brown-skinned" adoptive son, Alejandro (Ben Barnes - Dorian Gray).

It is said by several characters that he is Italian because his future mother-in-law (Christine Ebersole - Black Sheep) fears brown-skinned Hispanic babies although he is in fact supposed to be Colombian (but Barnes is actually a British actor who apparently hit the tanning beds a few times before filming the role .

.. not offensive at all, no?). Susan Sarandon (The Client) is the father's new girlfriend although she was at one time also their mother's best friend. The entire situation could be very awkward but the trio makes the best of it .

.. even as one of them walks in on the other two going at it on the kitchen counter. Yes, really. So many of the moments in The Big Wedding had me question whether or not I was actually seeing what my eyes were (sadly) ACTUALLY seeing because the content and situations were so dreadfully bad (not to mention embarrassing to some of the actors).

Topher Grace (Take Me Home Tonight) and Katherine Heigl (The Ugly Truth) plays Alejandro's two adoptive siblings -- him a sexually-challenged doctor who is relentlessly pursued by Alejandro's "real" sister (uh -- gross but played by Ana Ayora - Marley & Me) who comes to the wedding and her a cold who-knows-what.

Her purpose it to act sour and frustrated throughout the entire movie (perhaps she was the only one who read the script and couldn't help but act this way after being contractually obligated to it).

The Big Wedding is another "wedding shocker" (think 'Game of Thrones') but for a different reason ... this one is unbelievably bad. There isn't even a word for how bad this is. Four Oscar WINNERS in this cast (the fourth is Robin Williams playing a manic and bumbling priest) and we get this tripe? Could this possibly have been a paycheck film?