You know, I can't stand weddings.

Rating: 4/10 (31 July 2005)

"Wedding Crashers" is pretty obviously aimed at the "Meet the Parents/Fockers" crowd, and it certainly is just as forgettable as those two movies. It's also a lot longer, and much less pleasant - listening to other audience members laughing made me feel like Homer Simpson post-crayon-removal and watching "Love Is Nice" ("That's Bill PULLMAN, you fool!"); in an even closer analogy, one scene in David Dobkin's movie has wedding maid Rachel McAdams trying to keep a straight face while listening to her sister's wedding vows and almost succeeding. I had considerably less difficulty keeping a straight face throughout most of this movie's (over)length.
In fairness to Miss McAdams and the cast in general, it's not their fault I didn't warm to it the way a lot of others have; the performances throughout are a lot better than the material deserves, with Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson often just seeming to be improvising or delivering standup routines (which is strange given that they aren't comedians). The trouble is, nothing throughout the movie rings emotionally true the way it did in "Meet the Parents" or the sequel; the family our mediators/crashers slip into is chock full of screwball-wannabe stereotypes rather than people - mother Jane Seymour and daughter Isla Fisher score the highest in this field (watching the latter come into Vaughn's bedroom and rape him is a low point for the movie; imagine if it was the other way around... and equations to Jodie Foster in "The Accused" have no business being in comedies) - and because it's so phony throughout it completely fails to earn its soothing moments near the end.
That it's almost never funny doesn't help; it's always nice to see Rebecca DeMornay, and uncredited Will Ferrell singlehandedly raises my rating to 4 out of 10 (only when he's on screen does it qualify as a comedy), but "Wedding Crashers" is ultimately proof that it's not only overproduced blockbusters that can leave you empty inside. Sadly, its box office take suggests that New Line Cinema can think of plenty of reasons why we might get a sequel; if only we could have forever held our peace at the kiosk.