Poor acting, filthy, predicable and boring – basically a poorly made female hangover

Rating: 1/10 (26 July 2011)

Last week I was blackmailed into sitting through this chick flick which I'd heard (from guys and girls I thought I trusted) was "hilarious", but the fact that the opening scene almost made me hurl my face off, paved the way for yet another predictably awful cinema experience. I sat through the movie secretly making notes on my Android, got home, sat down to write this review and thought "where do I start?" and that's when I realised, "when suddenly it becomes difficult to write a review on a movie I hated, I know I've hit an all time favourite" (or not, as it may seem).
The story basically follows a bride and her bridesmaids as they try and make it from engagement to marriage and for one reason or another "things don't pan out the way you'd expect" (but actually they do). Refreshingly though, the bride is not protagonist of this movie its one of her bridesmaids; personally I'm bored to death of watching bridezillas! The trailers do a good job making this squashed bike wreck look funny – I smile even now as I watch it again – oops – but believe me when I say those are the only funny moments in the movie.
There's an uncomfortable silent-but-violent odour of "the hangover" all the way through the movie, the character profiles are roughly the same (the frustrated married one, the sensible one, the crazy one and the weird permed one) but throw in rich-lonely-bimbo and closet lesbian and you basically have 99% of womanhood represented in the movie. The other hangover whiffs are: the (wannabe) Vegas hen do, stolen puppies' v stolen baby, missing bride v missing groom.
The acting came across more forced and scripted than an apology from Bart Simpson; most of the humour (ironically) is toilet humour and why oh why is there some limp, flaccid love story in mix? (Oh yeah, it's a chick flick). Again, maybe this is a girl thing, but I didn't understand anything the women said, I felt like I was watching a schizophrenic have a conversation with a pinball machine (maybe my man-brain just switched off as soon as I heard what I thought were women nagging). Why did Matt Lucas humiliate himself doing this gibberish? What was wrong with Chris O'Dowd's American/Irish accent? Was he meant to sound like bipolar, devil possessed Emily Rose with a speech impediment? By far the worst scene in the movie was the speech scene, I was cringing so hard I think I think my Buccinator (the muscle that makes you smile) went into spasm. The best scene in the movie was the street poo scene – again, ironic how toilet humour (ie man humour) got the theatre erupting.
Finally, Melissa McCarthy was brilliant! Although her character was obviously a rip off of Alan from "the Hangover" she played it convincingly and naturally, it's no wonder she is doing great professionally (check out Mike & Molly and we all know she's in Gilmore Girls too). I personally prefer classy, sweet women, so the filthy innuendoes didn't impress me but all in all she's the only thing that makes the movie bearable. Ultimately, I'm an open minded guy ergo most chick flicks I wouldn't actively avoid watching, but this is the clear exception.
p.s. I didn't even talk about the dumb British girl, endless woo girls, Rastafarian Father of the bride (huh?) and the Porsche guy (double huh?)...