Review of Wedding Crashers (2005) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

The movie itself stars Vince Vaughn (as Jeremy Grey) and Owen Wilson (as John Beckwith) as two lawyers who spend their free time gate crashing at weddings to pull women, basically. However, when they do this at one of the biggest weddings of the year, things change when John breaks one of the 'Wedding Crasher Rules' and does the unthinkable in falling for the daughter of the US secretary of treasury, (who's played by Chrstopher Walken), which leaves Jeremy in a rather awkward situation being stuck with his sister, Gloria, who is what they'd call a 'stage five clinger', (who's played by Isla Fisher). This results in some pretty awkward situations when Jeremy joins John at the families large estate for a weekend. Some of the things that happen during this weekend that of course subsequently don't go to plan include a game of football and, of all things, quail hunting. Poor Jeremy doesn't fare well in between the different activites that go on, with the rather OTT (over the top) sister playing some pretty cruel and strange games with him, including at one point he wakes up during the night to find himself handcuffed to the bed (and it only gets stranger from there).

Suffice to say, Jeremy doesn't much enjoy the weekend and comes off alot worse than John does.

This is a rather off the wall kind of movie, one that would probably appeal to alot of men, though I have to say I didn't find it as amusing as I'd hoped I might. It is pretty predictable in some aspects, there are some fairly slapstick moments that made me chuckle but in between and for the most part I thought that the movie was a bit too long winded and a bit too cliched in some respects. The sisters character, Gloria, and the 'forced couple' of Jeremy and her is shown as an example of a complete opposite to John and Claire, the secretary of treasury's daughter, who get more serious and John wishes to commit more, the further into the movie it gets, (which of course somewhat angers Jeremy as this means that to stay by his best friend, he has to stay around the rather crazy sister Gloria). However, eventually Jeremy appears to change his mind about Gloria and starts to have feelings for her.

This certainly isn't a serious movie at all and should be taken for what it is, even though I still cringed a bit at Gloria's character and at the two 'Wedding Crashers' for their behaviour sometimes. Gloria is a very OTT character but the naivety that appears to be there gets taken advantage of by Jeremy which at some level annoyed me, until it became clear in the movie that she seemingly isn't so much naive but more just plain crazy or, yup, you guessed it, way OTT!

I think this comedy does have some laughs but it depends on what your taste is in these kind of movies I guess. Its somewhat similar to Meet The Family and/or Meet The Fockers I'd say, although not as funny as those movies and where the two main character are concerned, alot more arrogance obviously at the start of the movie. To start with I thought this is very much a guys movie, although I think as it progresses and with what happens towards the end of it, things change and there's the somewhat usual or typical Hollywood 'thing' where one of them sees how their ways were probably wrong... This is a semi original story but it just doesn't really work all that well I thought, the actors are good but ultimately I thought the story was flawed by the lack of substance. The story feels a bit too formulaic and potentially predictable, don't get me wrong there are some funny moments and the acting is good and so on but to me, it just didn't appeal as much as I'd hoped it might... I think perhaps its was over hyped in the media, giving me higher expectations than I should have had. Possibly one for the guys. I'm rating it satisfactory as the DVD contains a good amount of extras and you can buy it pretty cheap and the movie isn't entirely dire but it could definitely be better, in my opinion.

I'd say that if your into this kind of movie, you can find funnier ones. At least to me, it didn't appeal as much as I'd hoped it would. This is a movie that guys are more likely to enjoy and that appeals to more at the start. Its a bit too 'Hollywood-ised' I thought and I thought the basic story was a bit too flimsy, with not much added to it to back it up throughout (if you know what I mean).