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J. Lo Wedding Action-Comedy Is An Interminable Slog

January 19, 2023

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Action-comedy “Shotgun Wedding,” Jennifer Lopez’s newest star car, comes virtually precisely a yr after her different latest wedding-set romance “Marry Me”. In each movies, Lopez portrays girls discovering their real love a bit late in life, but like a contemporary Doris Day, the characters she performs are implied to be practically 15 years youthful than she truly is. As if a girl in her fifties couldn’t have these very experiences – one thing explicitly confirmed improper by the star’s personal private life. However troubling this curious ageist pattern in her filmography of late is, it’s the least of this movie’s issues.

Lopez performs bride-to-be Darcy, whose solely character trait is that her mother and father, multi-millionaire Robert (Cheech Marin) and moody Brazilian with self-described “beautiful hair” Renata (Sonia Braga), are divorced. She additionally has a youthful sister named Jamie ( Callie Hernandez, “The Flight Attendant”) who solely exists to be the cliched bridesmaid who exhibits up late the day of the marriage as a result of they’ve simply had intercourse with somebody they shouldn’t have. These supposed sisters get perhaps two scenes collectively and have completely no familial chemistry with one another, or with the legends taking part in their mother and father.

Darcy’s Etsy-obsessed husband-to-be Tom (Josh Duhamel, who changed Armie Hammer after he was accused of abuse and cannibalism by varied girls) has insisted on giving Darcy what he thinks is the island wedding ceremony of her desires — with out taking any of her dad’s cash. Somehow they’re nonetheless in a position to afford a personal island within the Philippines, even when Tom has to make romantic fairy-light laden pineapple centerpieces himself. We’re additionally advised Tom is a minor league baseball participant whose contract was not too long ago not renewed; a tidbit added it appears solely in order that he can later hit a hand grenade like a baseball within the movie’s preposterous finale. A second that’s, like most on this movie, arrange nicely however executed so poorly that its emotional resonance is virtually non-existent.

Of course, whereas the 2 bicker on the morning of their wedding ceremony day over the various emotions and insecurities they’ve by no means shared with one another, their wedding ceremony social gathering and company are taken hostage by pirates who’re after Robert’s huge fortune. Among the hostages are Tom’s overly midwestern mom Carol (Jennifer Coolidge, once more caught in a job that fetishizes her Mae West type of comedy slightly than leverages it), Darcy’s ex-Sean (Lenny Kravitz, who’s one way or the other zapped of all his attraction and charisma), Tom’s playboy finest buddy Ricky (Desmin Borges, as soon as the perfect issues on the FX present “You’re The Worst,” right here utterly under-written and under-used), and Robert’s new-agey younger girlfriend Harriet (D’Arcy Carden, whose comedy was so sharp on “The Good Place,” however whose alternative in movie roles is turning into questionable).

Director Jason Moore (“Pitch Perfect”) doesn’t have a maintain of this materials or his forged. Despite its stacked ensemble, the characters are paper-thin and there’s no sense of who anybody else is in relation to one another other than what we’re advised by way of the dialogue within the script from Mark Hammer (“Two Night Stand”). Moore by no means holds lengthy sufficient on any forged members for them so as to add nuance by way of glances or physique language. On prime of that, neither Moore nor Hammer are capable of finding a stability between the varied comedy types at play, mixing screwball patter, deadpan one-liners, and bodily slapstick with none rhyme or purpose.

It’s as if the script began as set items first after which the characters had been crafted across the star personas/schitcks of the varied actors. The cohesion just isn’t helped by Doc Crotzer (“Chaos Walking”), whose haphazard modifying leaves the motion sequences with none sense of rhythm or grace. The result’s a movie that feels each bit manufactured, with a heightened artificiality it simply can not handle to shake off.

Cinematographer Peter Deming is able to creating cinematic desires when working with a director like David Lynch, whose works “Lost Highway,” “Mulholland Drive” and “Twin Peaks: The Return” had been lensed by Deming. Yet right here, there isn’t any visible cohesion. The motion sequences haven’t any verve. There’s no magnificence to the framing of any given second. Deming’s visuals pale even compared to different latest island-set popcorn fare comparable to “The Lost City” or “Destination Wedding”. Along with beautiful visuals, these movies additionally benefited from bonafide chemistry between the leads, competently directed ensemble gamers, and set items that had been truly memorable.

Unfortunately, memorable moments are few and much between right here, and people are largely spoiled by the movie’s trailer. Like late within the movie when Coolidge grabs one of many titular shotguns and opens hearth on her captors in excessive slow-motion. Or when Lopez, additionally wielding a shotgun, calls for an apology from her mother and father for the way terribly they’ve handled her fiancé over time. If this type of playful subversion of wedding ceremony day angst had been employed extra efficiently all through “Shotgun Wedding,” the movie may need been the occasion of the season, slightly than the interminable slog it’s. [D]

J. Lo Wedding Action-Comedy Is An Interminable Slog

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