Not enough truth and pain to be consistently funny

Rating: 4/10 (6 April 2016)

I feel I should hate "Bridesmaids" much more than I do. It has a few good laughs, so I am prepared to forgive a lot of faults.
The movie is filled with caricatures, rather than characters, and they epitomize the worst stereotypes of women. They are obsessively insipid, banal and superficial. They talk trashy, but one manages to maintain her modesty through several sex scenes, then flashes another character with her hands covering her breasts. This makes sense for an actress who does a lot of work on television and in children's cartoons, but seems so awkward, contrived and unrealistic for the character as to shatter the audience's willful suspension of disbelief. Melissa McCarthy, who is probably my least favorite comic of all time, presents her usual mishmash of wildly inappropriate, brash and uncouth behavior which quickly degenerates from shocking to mildly amusing to tedious. The dialogue is saturated with exposition. The plot is contrived. One character who claims to have no female friends is nevertheless able to obtain preferential treatment through her close relationships. The actions and reactions of the characters might make sense in a cartoon, but seem exaggerated in live action. Much of the plot involves relying upon conspicuous consumption to alleviate feelings of insecurity. The expenditures seem so grotesquely unrealistic that one character even stands in a crowded room and asks the other characters if any of it makes sense. Some of the gags seemed unfinished. There needed to be more resolution and consequences to two trips, one out-of-state and the other out-of-country.
John Vorhaus defines comedy as truth and pain. Much of the humor fell flat because the characters and situations seem too exaggerated and forced to be real. But there were enough attempts at humor that other jokes and gags made me laugh.
Many of the supporting cast provided strong performances, particularly Chris O'Dowd and Jill Clayburgh, including some in very small roles, such as Franklyn Ajaye, Terry Crews and Tom Yi. The main characters generally delivered their lines well, but were weaker with physical comedy, which often seemed poorly choreographed.