You truely knew that, given no longer most effective the plethora of wedding-themed films Jennifer Lopez has made over time, from “The Wedding Planner” to “Monster-in-Law” to the recent “Marry Me,” however also her very own offscreen life, of path.
And now comes “Shotgun Wedding,” wherein the ageless pop big name and rom-com queen dons a pouffy white concoction that regularly sheds layers of tulle to emerge as increasingly more attractive as Lopez fights off no longer handiest cringey wedding ceremony visitors but device-gun toting pirates. She switches at one factor to fight boots — plucked from a lifeless guy! —- over wedding ceremony heels, and right here’s any other spoiler alert: if everybody can make fight boots paintings with pouffy tulle even as running in gradual motion, it’s Lopez.
But all the appeal and style in the world, and J.Lo has extra than all people, can’t make up for the bizarre tonal imbalance of “Shotgun Wedding,” a movie too violent to be humorous and too humorous (inside the bizarre, bizarre experience) to be amusing. The film, directed via Jason Moore, additionally commits the not going crime of below-the usage of that different bulletproof Jennifer of the instant, Jennifer Coolidge, who regularly seems to be looking palpably for decent strains. Come on, humans! You had BOTH Jennifers! This ought to were a slam dunk.Kudos, although, to whoever picked the beautiful resort for this unique destination wedding ceremony (the shoot passed off inside the Dominican Republic, status in for the Philippines). It’s right here that we first meet Darcy, our bride, at the practice session dinner, already looking a lot higher than all of us else, in motel put on and turquoise chunky rings — but we digress.
Darcy is navigating a visitor list filled with proverbial hand grenades, even earlier than the actual grenades start flying. There’s her icy mother (Sonia Braga, also lamentably underused), who’s divorced from her father (Cheech Marin) and appalled at the oddly ditzy new female friend he’s brought to the marriage (D’Arcy Carden). Mom tells Darcy she ought to have popular her dad’s millions (or billions?) to make the wedding ideal, but Darcy replies that the couple desired to do it their way. Besides, they’re grownups.
The groom, you ask? We’re attending to that. Initially the part became to be performed via Ryan Reynolds, a tantalizing comedic opportunity. Then it became to be Armie Hammer, who stepped apart for apparent motives, and now we’ve Josh Duhamel, flawlessly good-looking and agreeable but … the chemistry rests with Lopez, and not between them.In a clever twist, Tom is the “groomzilla,” enthusiastic about wedding ceremony info, and spray-portray the pineapples all night time long. As for his mother, well, she’s the delightfully ditzy Carol (Coolidge), obsessed with “South Pacific” and eager to have a good time. (Coolidge, hot off “White Lotus,” knows her manner round a inn).
It have to be stated that Coolidge — who at this factor in her profession would be every person’s pinnacle preference to play any mom — more than pulls her weight. But there’s simplest a lot she can do with dialogue that appears slapped together with minimum effort. True, Coolidge can make almost something sound humorous, but at times it seems like her script instructions said nothing greater than “Carol says something wacky.”
