Enjoyable, despite everything

Rating: 7/10 (13 June 2000)

The eighties were a musical and cultural low, so setting a film within that era is a hazardous, some would say foolish, exercise. Somehow, however, The Wedding Singer manages to overcome the problems of a dreadful soundtrack, awful clothes, and a truly cringe-making cameo from Billy Idol, and provide a largely enjoyable couple of hours. The main reason for this is the excellent performance of the two leads, Sandler does pathos and bitterness in an appealing and yet un-sugary manner, and Barrymore is equally adept at naive and insecure. Together they manage to portray a couple whose destiny is obvious to everyone but themselves, in a very convincing manner.
A couple of quite hilarious scenes (particularly the table full of losers), a couple of nice supporting performances and on the whole a pleasurable if not exceptional film. 7/10