“A typically stupid, dumb and brainless comedy.”
SPOILER FREE I have to be honest, when I first saw the trailer for ‘The Wedding Ringer’ it made me completely lose my mind – mainly for realising that this was going to be a film that I would have to eventually see. I had in my mind that “it’s your typical trashy, unfunny and stupid American comedy” and I was certainly not disappointed in this regard. The first so-called ‘gag’ is the lead protagonist Doug falling through a glass table as he leans backward – nobody in the cinema, including myself laughed at this; and thus set the tone for the entire film. As much as there are some American comedies that I still like to this day, much of it seems to be all about repetition. The reason why so many of these comedies get negative reception is not just because the characters are undeveloped, the scripts are badly written and the actors are badly directed (although all of these may be true) – it’s because the film is NOT funny!
Throughout the film’s duration, we get to know the characters of Doug and Jimmy better, and how they’re going to pull the wedding off with the fake best man and groomsmen – whilst trying to fool everybody else including the bride that it’s all genuine. Of course; the groomsmen provided by the best man are a bunch of crazy misfits, including a man that has a serious stammer – they play the same joke of this guy not being able to get his words out about 6 times.
In the film’s defence, there were a couple lines of dialogue that made me snigger quietly for a few seconds, it’s the stupid and loud jokes that don’t work. It made me think back to ‘The Inbetweeners 2’ and how they didn’t get it completely right with all the jokes. The funniest thing about ‘The Inbetweeners’ were the excellently written lines of dialogue that were delivered in hilarious ways that only forced you to laugh at the characters. The stupidly ridiculous ‘monkey humour’ (as I call it) that ‘The Wedding Ringer’s cursed with, requires no intellect or cleverness in understanding what is supposed to be ‘funny’.
It’s a really dumb film, although not as hateful as I was expecting it to be – 95% of it is stupid, crass and boring, but there were some small moments that were either funny or interesting. All round, it’s a really stupid piece of work that makes you look to Hollywood and say “really?… this again?!”
★
Hudson-Cook 