Good, but seeping with wasted opportunities

Rating: 6/10 (10 October 2005)

One thing must be said right at the beginning - Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have the best on-screen buddy-buddy chemistry since Gibson and Glover in Lethal Weapon 1. You could watch these guys discuss the political situation in Zaire and still have a great time. Anyway, on with the comment.
The premise of the "Wedding Crashers) actually has loads of potential - just look at it. Two guys who in spite of being "not so young" (in their own words) lead a hedonistic lifestyle of wedding-crashing and sleeping with beautiful women suddenly find themselves taking a much larger bite then they can swallow while crashing a wedding of a big-shot minister. This comedy has all the right ingredients - mistaken identities, crazy relatives, snappy conversations, slapstick humor, you name it. Top it with a great cast and two almost perfect leads and you really have a sleeper hit on your hands.
Or not. This movie could serve as a school example for how sloppy directing and editing can really work against the movie itself. There are so many scenes that really verge on being hilarious, yet they either end too suddenly or just stretch themselves too long so they lose all their oomph. Consider the opening wedding-crash montage - it just goes on and on. The freaking thing never ends. Or (not to say too much to avoid spoilers) the bondage scene - it's great, it's funny, yet it's seeping with wasted potential. I shouldn't even mention the surprise cameo that happens near the end - while I appreciate the work of the actor in question, his inclusion seems like an afterthought which serves nothing except unnecessarily prolonging the movie for extra 20 minutes.
I must admit that this IS a feel-good movie - you know the kind. It's a movie you have fun watching and you feel a sorta half-smile never leaving your face. Yet that smile rarely becomes a true laugh - you feel it coming, you know there something really funny right down the corner, yes, here it is...aaand, no, back to the half-smile again. And you'll be doing this right up to the ending credits (which in my opinion could really benefit from some goofs and screw-ups from the shooting itself - I was really eager to see some REAL Vaughn-Wilson interaction instead of a sloppily directed one).
Anyway, this is a good movie, an entertaining movie, a Hollywood comedy that is actually funny - which has become a rarity lately - yet don't go with very high expectations (which could be the case, especially after reading some of the raving reviews circulating here).