Moriarty

Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

I’m still not sure exactly why Vern called me out in his review of THE WEDDING CRASHERS a few days ago. One thing’s for sure... the film rubbed him the wrong way. Believe me, I’ve been there. Last year, when all the other major contributors to this site were praising HAROLD & KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE, I just sat there seething. That film bugged me pretty much all the way through, and to hear someone laud the moronic “battleshits” scene as “hilarious” was like drinking sand mixed with glass. It just made me hate the film more. As a result, I’m pretty sure Vern’s going to dislike me actively after this review, because from where I sit, he got it wrong.

I’ll say this up front, because this is what needs saying the most: Vince Vaughn rips it the fuck up in David Dobkin’s THE WEDDING CRASHERS. It’s a great performance. I’d say it’s a “Bill Murray in STRIPES” great performance. The film itself is very good, but Owen Wilson gets stuck with most of the heavy lifting. He manages to be funnier than Luke Wilson was playing essentially the same function in OLD SCHOOL, and Owen does good work, but Vince gets to come in and just KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! in every scene.

Watch for his nearly pathological addiction to wedding cake, his almost-as-severe love for maple syrup, and just how wonderfully filthy he is. He earns the film an R all by himself. And this is an R-rated comedy, no doubt about it. It’s cheerfully dirty, and there are a couple of moments that are surprisingly dark. Dobkin made a strong debut with CLAY PIGEONS, but sort of phoned it in with SHANGHAI KNIGHTS. This time at bat, he steps it up, and especially in the first hour of this film, he proves himself to be quite adept at staging comic mayhem if he’s got a good cast and the right material. There’s a montage early on... and, yes, I know that montage is normally a bad word, especially in mainstream comedies where they usually involve someone trying on hats in front of a mirror or working together with a group of friends to solve a problem while a pop tune plays... but this is different.

It’s a look at the entire dizzying blur of wedding season as experienced by John (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy (Vince Vaughn), one wedding intercut with another and another and another, all of it staged to the song “Shout.” That song, of course, was made famous first in ANIMAL HOUSE in an amazingly iconic scene. Because of the song’s success in ANIMAL HOUSE, it’s become a wedding standard, a way for a DJ to get people up and dancing that is a guaranteed hit. It’s played at hundreds and hundreds of weddings a year, and any wedding band worth its salt knows the song. Somehow, though, the sequence cut to it is so infectiously hysterical that I think Dobkin may well have finally stolen the song away from Landis. Because the scene takes place early, it sets up this great energy that benefits the entire rest of the film.

If I had to come up with one major criticism of the movie, it’s that the entire film is predicated on a series of lies, which is starting to become the single laziest plot device in romantic comedy. When your entire relationship begins with a massive series of fundamental mistruths, does it ever really work out? How many couples do you think there are running around telling people their charming anecdotes about the time the guy lied to her entire family and claimed to be royalty even though he was really just a pool cleaner because he thought he wasn’t good enough? Yet it seems like every single romantic comedy that gets made hinges on this sort of massive misrepresentation. I can see how that would grate on Vern’s nerves. I bet I see a lot more of these films than he does, though, because my wife is addicted to them. She’ll watch every crappy BRIDGET JONES clone that the studios can pump out, and she enjoys them all. I think the reason they all follow that same familiar form is because it’s comforting to fans of the genre. Hell, you could make the same argument about superhero movies. Take out the proper names and just describe each of the last five big superhero films in vague plot points, and they all sound like the exact same movie. It’s a problem, but in the end, what matters most in a case like this is how they execute the thing. As Paul Provenza and Penn Jilette propose in THE ARISTOCRATS (which I’ll review next week), it’s the singer, not the song, and even if the film does retread some painfully familiar comic ground, it works because of just how incredibly dedicated the cast is to the entire premise of the picture.

Even though I singled out Vince Vaughn for praise, he’s not the only one who deserves it. For a really great comic performance, you’ve got to have someone to bounce off of, someone who’s going to give as good as they get. In this film, Vaughn’s got two very capable sparring partners. Owen Wilson’s got the strangest charisma of any leading man working in mainstream comedy right now. When he’s used wrong, he can seem completely disconnected from a movie, but when he’s engaged, he is preposterously charming. IT makes sense that he’s the one who is required to do all of the romantic heavy lifting, because he never comes across quite as predatory as Vaughn. Even when he’s going through his third-act meltdown, he makes it seem kind of sweet instead of scummy. Considering how pathetic these guys could come across, it’s pretty amazing that we’re able to maintain sympathy for them throughout, and it’s a testament primarily to the chemistry between Wilson and Vaughn. It seems hard to believe that this is the first film they’ve co-starred in as the leads in the nine years since they made their debuts in SWINGERS and BOTTLE ROCKET, respectively. We’ve seen all sorts of combinations of Vaughn, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Owen, and Will Ferrell, but this might be the most appealing combination so far. I know I brought up STRIPES earlier, but it’s apt in many ways. I don’t think Bill Murray ever had a better comic partner than Harold Ramis. The two of them complimented each others’ comic rhythms perfectly, and it’s the same here with Vaughn and Wilson.

The real surprise for me in this film is Isla Fisher. She seemed cute in SCOOBY-DOO, but that was hardly a showcase for comic timing for anyone. Here, she lets her freak flag fly loud and proud, and it’s the kind of work that guarantees we’ll be seeing a lot more of her in the next few years. She’s cute, she’s naked, and she’s funny. What’s not to like? Every time Fisher’s front and center, the film takes a rocket ride to Loonytown, which may be why Rachel McAdams was cast as Fisher’s older sister, the romantic lead opposite Owen Wilson. She’s grounded and sincere and plays it well. McAdams seems to be getting better and better with every film, and New Line obviously loves her after this and THE NOTEBOOK. Her character here is thin, but she brings such a sweet sincerity to it, and she underplays the more obvious stuff in a way that I found rather endearing. She and Wilson have just enough genuine spark to set up a rooting interest in their relationship.

Overall, the supporting cast does exactly what they were all hired to do. Christopher Walken is more restrained than usual, cutting a suitably stern paternal figure as the head of the Cleary family. Jane Seymour doesn’t have a lot to do, but she’s funny as an extra-horny political power wife. Bradley Cooper plays the obligatory scumbag boyfriend, and he attacks the role with such zeal that it’s easy to forget just how likeable he was on ALIAS. Will Ferrell shows up for an extended cameo late in the film, and it’s a fairly dark performance. That’s when the film shifts gears a bit before finally making its way to a perfunctory happy ending. Even as the most predictable beats play out, there’s still a bit of subversive sarcasm to the entire enterprise that makes it palatable. Technical credits on the film are similarly right-on-the-money, with cinematographer Julio Macat’s photography serving as the bright and colorful gift-wrapping on this particular package.

Is WEDDING CRASHERS a great movie? No. Is it a consequential movie? No. Does it trade on cliché to keep the plot mechanics spinning? Absolutely. But the main thing I am concerned about when watching a comedy is laughter, and THE WEDDING CRASHERS is uproariously funny for much of its running time. This is a romantic comedy for people who hate romantic comedies, and it will also fully satisfy people already in love with the genre. Between this and THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, it seems to be a very good summer for adult comedy, indeed.

I’ve got one more review and a few stories I’ll be posting this morning, so let’s get to it. Until then...