Hola all. Massawyrm here.

James Marsden is a mangod beset in flesh and left to walk amongst mere mortals. There I said it. Not that it didn't take quite some time for his divinity to manifest – hell, it was over seven years ago that I first heard his name spoken aloud and I've only just now become convinced. But there it is. While the tales of some gods involve their transformation into golden showers or the transmutation of water into wine, James Marsden possesses a slightly more awesome ability. He defies the very fundamental laws of physics and actually manages to polish a turd. That's not to say that he is so all-powerful as to actually save 27 Dresses from itself. But the mighty manglue of James Marsden does a damn fine job of holding it all together, keeping it from being a complete and utter irredeemable mess.

27 Dresses isn't a bad movie. It certainly isn't trying to be. It's got a smart script that needed just one more pass. It's got two strong leads. And it's got a pretty solid, character driven concept. The problem is that the film is helmed by one of the single most inept commercial directors I have ever seen. The mistakes made behind the camera in this film are so amateur hour, so unbelievably sophomoric, that you can't believe this is really happening. You know that friend of yours who always walks out of films saying "Shit, I could direct a better film than that," and then he makes a home movie that is far and away not better than that? This is that movie.

It's common for people, when trashing a movie, to say "the direction was bad." And it's one of those pet peeves of mine because most often it's just a bullshit phrase. Often times I have to ask people what they mean when they say that. How was the direction bad? "It just was," they'll respond. There are directors that just make terrible films (like Uwe Boll) or that churn out completely lifeless, anemic films (like Len Wiseman), but just plain bad direction? How do you quantify that specifically? Well, at last, I have seen an isolated case of it, complete with evidentiary support. You see, while every other aspect of this movie seems to be fighting against it, director Anne Fletcher seems hell-bent to make this the worst possible film she can.

There are scenes that will completely pass you by, not for lack of anything interesting going on, but simply because the extras are so god damned distracting that you can't for one moment take your eyes off them. They're turning around, pointing or making such over the top wild gestures in the background that you forget for a moment that James Marsden and Katherine Heigl are in the middle of falling in love right before your eyes. And you miss what's going on, what's being said. It's as if (and I'm not ruling this out as a real possibility) the director wanted to put her friends (or most likely her dance students) prominently in front of the camera and thought it would be okay if they over did it a little. Far from an isolated incident, there are entire scenes ruined not by the acting, not by the writing, but by the fucking extras. Extras are supposed to be invisible. They're scenery. They are there to make it so every scene isn't comprised of our actors walking through empty buildings or lifeless streets.

And when it's not the extras making the film feel genuinely unnatural, it's having the best friend make faces at the camera every moment she's not speaking. It is the bored, repetitive camera work. It is the jokes that are obviously really good but just aren't timed right – you know, the kind of joke that's better when you retell it after the movie. And it is the complete lack of understanding of the very fundamentals of the type of story they're telling. This feels like a film made by someone who sat down with a couple dozen romantic comedies and said I can make one of these. This is easy. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back. How hard can it be?

Very. It is the very repetition of that principle and the predictability of the plot that makes a rom-com something very hard to get just right. Sure, the typical audience for this kind of film is pretty forgiving and willing to sit through something mediocre only to rave about it afterwards. But that doesn't make it okay to simply deliver mediocrity. Every shot, every choice, every aspect of this film left solely in the directors hands gets mangled.

Enter James Marsden. Now I'm not certain whether or not Marsden knew what kind of a wreck he was getting himself into – whether he looked around the set, shrugged and said Jesus, this woman can't direct her way to crafty, let alone get extras to stand still long enough for me to say my lines. In fact, it is entirely possible that he thought this was his big break. But the romantic in me would like to think he knew this was going to stink like yesterdays cheese, but tired of playing the perpetual third wheel decided to take his shot as the leading man. Whatever the case may be, Marsden doesn't phone this in for a second. Instead he attacks this with every bit of talent he has, giving it his all as if he were acting opposite Audrey Hepburn in one of the classics. His charm, his humor, the occasional dashing pose. Every weapon in his acting arsenal comes to bear in this film and, surrounded by cinematic incompetence, you realize just how good this guy really is.

James Marsden is the sun and every moment this film spends away from him is like being in the bleak, cold darkness of the far side of the moon. His absence is obvious. You begin to wonder when this whole sister subplot is going to move along so we can bring James Marsden back into frame. Because when he vanishes, he fucking vanishes. It's as if all hope and light were extinguished from the world until he returns. There's one run of the film where he's gone for a good 20 minutes. And the void is palpable. Don't get me wrong, Heigl is good in this – in fact she's a lot better than I usually find her. She's very endearing, slightly damaged and just plain adorable. Unfortunately for her, no one but Marsden is really giving her anything to work with. When these two are on screen together, their chemistry is so damned undeniable that it gets you all warm and gooey inside. And no, this isn't me just being a little bitch. I saw this with some of my hard core, rom-com hating buddies and even they had to admit how charming those two were on screen at all times. But while every moment with these two works, almost every moment they spend apart is like watching the filler story in a porno. You just can't wait to get back to the action.

Now this thing isn't all bad. There are a few bright shining moments, a few real surprises in the story that are truly fresh and inspired. And Marsden and Heigl give those moments all the weight they can. And it is in those moments that you realize how much better a film this could have been under a different director. There's a reason this is being dumped in January rather than being saved a few more weeks for a Valentines Day release. It's pretty clear this thing isn't going to make much of a dent. The charisma of the leads is enough to entertain those not expecting much – but when all is said and done, it leaves you feeling like the talent here got shortchanged. Almost as much as the audience.

If this movie serves any purpose at all, it is to illustrate just how talented its leads are under the worst of circumstances. It's clear that without Marsden or Heigl this thing would be unwatchable. These two really carry this thing the whole way. That's not to say it's good, but it certainly entertained an audience of soccer moms for 2 hours. And it made me smile a few times. And it shouldn't have. This is Marsden's year. He's about to be propelled into the A-list and is destined to have a Vince Vaughn/Jude Law/Collin Ferrell 5-movies-in-one-year stretch coming sometime very soon. Let's hope he's smart enough not to let himself over saturate the market too quickly. And let's hope this is the last time he has to do something like this.

Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.

Massawyrm

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