The Unfunniest Comedy of the Year

Rating: 4/10 (17 January 2006)

"Wedding Crashers" just isn't that funny, though I think it wants to be. After a dazzling, energetic initial fifteen minutes or so, the movie settles into a hum-drum, routine comedy formula and never recovers. Owen Wilson is low-key and pleasant enough to carry it through, but Vince Vaughan creates a grotesque caricature that ceases to be funny early on. There are lots of subplots that could have made the movie a cut above average, but none of them go anywhere, and an actor like Christopher Walken is utterly wasted in a disposable part. Come on, if you have someone like Walken in your movie and you can't find anything funny for him to do, you've got serious problems.
The film goes on far too long, and its final quarter gets downright depressing before everything resolves itself predictably in a corny finale.
I thought this was supposed to be the funniest movie of the year--must have been an unusually unfunny year.
Grade: C