Reel Matt

This blog started as my movie marathon — watching a movie a day for a whole year — and has continued as a place for me to write reviews about movies, TV, and various other items.

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Wedding Crashers

Film #159

THE PLOT

John Beckwith and Jeremy Grey, a pair of committed womanizers who sneak into weddings to take advantage of the romantic tinge in the air, find themselves at odds with one another when John meets and falls for Claire Cleary.

Year 1, Day 160

BEFORE: I think the end-of-the-year fatigue is starting to settle in. I’m extremely tired and can’t wait for these last projects to be over and done with so I can relax and continue watching great films. Wedding Crashers takes today’s film slot and I won’t bore you with any more before information and just get right on to the film.

AFTER: Wedding Crashers is a great romantic comedy. It delivers in the two main areas for this genre: laughs and relationships. Not only are the jokes funny throughout the film but the characters and the relationships that develop are meaningful and ones you can connect with as a viewer.

A lot of the success falls on the terrific actors in Wedding Crashers. Christopher Walken (last seen in Seven Psychopaths) is Christopher Walken. Love him or hate him (and really, how could you hate the guy) he has a very distinct personality that shows in all of his characters. For Wedding Crashers, that personality fits in with the powerful politician and father character he plays. Another strong performance came from an actress I’m usually not that big a fan of: Rachel McAdams. Full disclosure, I haven’t seen a lot of McAdams’ work (just Mean Girls and the Sherlock Holmes films) but there’s just something I don’t like about her. However, her performance in Wedding Crashers was fantastic and now has me interested in seeing more of her characters. Her character, Claire Cleary, and Owen Wilson’s character, John Beckwith, have some great chemistry in the film and really drives the rest of the story and the message of the film.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching Wedding Crashers. It was a funny and uplifting film that made me forget about my fatigue and reenergized me for a long final week ahead of me. While it’s extremely entertaining and filled with many laughs and great insightful moments, the story fell a bit flat for me. For a romantic comedy to be the best of the best it needs to have a highly original and somewhat unique plot to make it stand out amongst the plethora of others in the genre. Wedding Crashers wasn’t repetitive but it wasn’t brand new either. This doesn’t take away from the entertainment of the film, for that I still recommend seeing it, but it does take away a few quality points from the film in general. In other words: a great film but not the best there is.

RATING: 4 out of 5