Wedding Crashers

I went to Coral Ridge Mall on July 15 2005 not certain what I wanted to see, however, when I got there all the movies were either ones I had seen already or ones I didn't want to see (like Bewitched). Rather than re-watch a film such as Batman Begins, I decided to risk it on Wedding Crashers and chose the 6:50pm showing.

The film trailer was very familiar to me having previewed for months preceding numerous films in the theatre along with being playing ad nauseum via T.V. spots. Additionally, many forums published the link to a relatively humorous online skit where you could add yourself or a couple of friends' pictures to the movie trailer at Crash The Trailer. Now, the movie trailer itself isn't very spectacular. Several movies this year have had unexceptional, corny or just plain crappy trailers, leading me to not relish the idea to attend them. A few choice examples would be Batman Begins, The Island and this movie where the scenes didn't appear very funny and being a comedy, this seemed to portend flop material. However, I am starting to believe there is an inverse potential for movie greatness based on trailer exhiliration--the best trailers I have seen (Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Dark Water) all hallmarked terrible to bearably okay films, while the most inane ones have heralded some pretty darn good movies such as Wedding Crashers happens to be.

The first part of this comedy is a setup to the plotline, which of course involves 2 divorce mediators played by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn who each year spend the prime summer wedding season crashing weddings. These guys like to party and to be the life of the party, picking up random chicks at each wedding by pretending to be people they aren't. The early scenes shows a series of vignettes of assorted weddings from Irish to Jewish to Hindu, and at each they woo the masses and take the limelight.

The two swingers then manage to get into the biggest wedding gala of the year for the Secretary of the Treasury's daughter, although by this time Owen Wilson's John Beckwith character is starting to question this annual plunge into sordidness as perhaps being shallow and empty for a middle-aged guy to be doing the rest of his life. Vaughn convinces him to go to this last wedding for the year, and this is where the fun and laughs really begin.

For the rest of the film until almost the very end, the movie is absolutely hilarious with only the last few scenes stretching out a bit too long to come to conclusion. Wedding Crashers is certainly crude throughout, full of profanity and violence and nudity, and it isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but I found this film to be wonderfully funny. The movie is definitely not just a guy flick at all, but for anyone who is not easily offended yet still wants to be easily amused. One truly classic scene (taking place in a bedroom) involves Vaughn, the stalker/leech/crazy chick played by Isla Fisher as Gloria Cleary, and assorted other visitors who keep popping in on him along with a bizarre painting. It has a couple of plot twists I just didn't see coming at all.

I am rating this movie a good and it is the best of the comedies I've seen this year, better than Meet the Fockers in its brashness and comedy for comedy's sake ideals. In a genre I do not particularly fancy (I prefer horror to hilarity), Wedding Crashers far exceeds my very low expectations.

Please feel free to comment on this review or on the movie itself at the forum thread devoted to it at this location.