Movie Review: “Bride Wars”
Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway in “Bride Wars.”
Rating: 49
Nearly every slapstick plot twist or conniving act of retribution in “Bride Wars” can be seen a mile a way, like a royal bridal train. That doesn’t make this lighter-than-angel-food-cake comedy a total misfire, but “Bride Wars” plays like a decent engagement that got rushed to the altar.
Emma and Liv (Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson) are lifelong best friends who started dreaming of perfect, fairy-tale weddings when they were still playing dress-up in the attic. By their mid-20s, Liv is a workaholic lawyer and Emma is a more easy-going grade school teacher, but when their respective boyfriends pop the question simultaneously, the wedding process turns both of them into type-A+ monsters.
Both Liv and Emma always wanted to have their wedding at the Trump Plaza, where star wedding planner Marion St. Clare (Candice Bergen) calls the shots. When the two find out there is only one Saturday in June available, friendship goes out the window and the two rivals start sabotaging each other’s big day.
Much like last year’s weak Cameron Diaz/Ashton Kutcher comedy “What Happens in Vegas,” long stretches of “Bride Wars” are devoted to dirty tricks, with Hudson and Hathaway each trying to get the upper hand on the low road. Most of it barely works, though Hathaway does manage to cut loose during a bachelorette party scene — it’s a rare time when “Bride Wars” rises to the occasion.
Director Gary Winick (“Charlotte’s Web,” “13 Going on 30”) moves the story along through its obvious plot points and conclusion — this is a comedy that must have looked great on paper, but despite an appealing lead cast, the chemistry never quite gels. All this leaves “Bride Wars” feeling as strongly committed as a shotgun wedding.
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Umm… that photo, George, might just be the most erotically charged thing you’ve posted on this here blog.
BULLY, sir! BULLY !!!