Very underwhelming

Rating: 5/10 (18 October 2015)

Back in 2011 Bridesmaids was hailed as the comedy of the year, a raunchy R-rated female affair that earned Academy Awards nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Melissa McCarthy, turning her into a huge comedy star. But despite this Bridesmaids is really a mediocre comedy which is not as funny or heartfelt as it thinks it is.
Annie (Kristen Wiig) is a singleton in Milwaukee and a failed business owner. Her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) gets engaged and asks Annie to be her maid-of-honour; but Annie has to deal with her limited budget when the rest of the bridal party wanting something more extravaganza and Annie developing a rivalry with the yuppyish Helen (Rose Byrne).
Bridesmaids does have some funny moments and set-pieces, such as a violent tennis match, the visit to the bridal shop and some of Annie's dodgy motoring skills. They do raise a laugh and McCarthy and Irish comedian Chris O'Dowd were the best members of cast, McCarthy for her vulgarity and O'Dowd just having a sweet quality to him. For fans of The IT Crowd it is great to see he is getting Hollywood. The rest of the cast are fine, Wiig getting some laughs and Byrne always being strong, but Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper do not get much in the way character development. McLendon-Covey does have a few fun lines due the stresses of being a mum to three boys.
Despite the few moments of humour Bridesmaids is very lacking throughout its run time. The famous bridal shop scene is a gross out scene which could have been in a film like American Pie, just aiming to show that women are also capable of gross out jokes, even thought gross out is very puerile. The inclusion of Matt Lucas and Rebel Wilson as a weird British brother and sister were painfully unfunny and there were many moments based just on Annie's humiliation which is more sad to watch then funny. Hell Annie could solution could have been to say I love to be your maid of honour but I haven't got much money at the moment and I'm sure people would have helped her.
Bridesmaids is meant to be a film set in the real world due to its setting and scenario. You would expect some comic exaggeration which is part of the course, but that gets thrown with gag that at the bridal shower people are given puppies as a gift: it is too stupid and over the top. There needed to be some internal logic.
Bridesmaids was produced by Judd Apatow, a filmmaker who has praised for his work on films like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. But Apatow is an overrated writer and director and his comedies are neither as groundbreaking or funny that they are made out to be and Bridesmaids follows some of his worst aspects. The film ran at over two hours which is long for a comedy, like other Apatow film and Bridesmaids does nothing dramatically or comedically to justify itself. Also like Apatow films, Bridesmaids takes itself too seriously and tries to show Annie's lonely lifestyle and seeing her life full apart, but it is just too depressing.
Bridesmaids does have some funny moments, its lacks any consistent in jokes or drama. There are too few jokes and its dramatic parts are too low. The IMDb score of 6.8 is much more reflective of the films quality then its 90% Rotten Tomatoes rating.