The Wedding Planner: 2001
Summary:
This movie actually has two pretty big-name stars in it - Jennifer Lopez (as Mary) and Matthew McConaughey (as Steve/Eddie).
Mary is a Type-A, super organized, emotionless wedding planner who can predict down to the week when/if a couple will get divorced. She manages to get her firm to do the really high-profile wedding of Fran Donolly (Bridgette Wilson) who is a new-monied, fancy business woman. She convinces her boss that if this wedding goes off successfully, she could be made partner in the firm.
Meanwhile...she happens to meet this charming children's doctor, Steve, and against her rule she falls in "like" with him (and she thinks vice versa). Unfortunately, he turns out to be Fran's fiancé - so he's out of Mary's mind. In fact, she thinks he's a sleezeball for going on a date with a woman when he was already engaged.
So she starts planning the couple's wedding and having alternating cute and confrontational moments with Steve. At one point...conveniently...Fran goes out of town leaving Mary and Steve to keep working on the wedding. And while all this is going on Mary's dad wants her to get married so he sets her up with a childhood friend, Massimo (Justin Chambers) who grew up in the same Italian-American community as her. He's awkward and very "foreign" despite the fact that he apparently grew up in America and says and does things that "normal" people wouldn't but looking hot/sexxy while he does.
Then the farce comes out where Mary plays off the misbelief that she's engaged to Massimo to make Steve jealous (or something) because she realizes that she actually does have feelings for him. Then she's denies being engaged and tells Massimo to go away, followed by him telling *her* that he loves her and asking her to marry him. This is after a big fight w/ Steve where Mary yet again believes that love sucks. So she is convinced by her father that she'd learn to tolerate Massimo, then to like him, then finally...after 30 years...to love him.
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| Poor Massimo - He had to be the obnoxious foreigner when he did actually have real feelings. He's the one the probably "lost" the most when I came to the end wedding arrangement. |
So she says yes.
The movie ends with both the MCs getting ready for their wedding and then both the weddings breaking up b/c the OTHER people in them decide that this is not the right plan. And the two MCs get together and since they're already in wedding attire, tie the knot.
Review:
First off, I have to say I REALLLLY don't like Matthew McCoughn-- whatever. He always plays useless male characters with too much testosterone, too little brains and too stupid ideas. The first scene had me hoping for more - like maybe he really could be "the charming love interest"...but no...that impression is gone with his second exposure. Instead he plays a useless male character with too much testosterone, too little brains and too stupid ideas.
Second, the plot. Oh god...Mary is supposed to be played as a contradictory character who plans weddings, talks brides down off the "edge", comforts the father of the bride and makes magic happen everyday, yet she is cold and dead inside and doesn't believe in actual love. Why is this? Ohyeah...her fiance cheated on her with her wedding planner and broke her heart. Predictable!
(As a side note: I called this right when "strange new guy with pretty girl on arm" shows up on the scene. Math couldn't figure out how I knew haha).
Anyway, while the movie shoves this plot line down your throat and into your eyes, it's not very believable. There's a point in the movie where Fran says "I don't think I'm ready to marry. I don't think I could do this" etc. etc. and instead of Mary saying "Well if it's not right, don't force it." she actually convinces Fran that Steve loves her more than anything else! I know, you're going to say her career is at stake but BULLCRAP! I've seen enough of these movies to know that love is the thing that everything else eventually succumbs to, so yeah. Not convincing.
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| Ugh...I can't even stand seeing these two together. Cute couple they are NOT! |
And the story with Massimo is another one of those annoying comic routines that's not actually funny but just really embarrassing. Plus...none of their Italian accents were even REMOTELY close. I think Massimo sounded more Russian.
Lastly both characters were weak, they effectively let everyone else end their wrong marriages for them and just went blithely along like idiots. They were not responsible for their own happinesses, and Steve was just a pig for being all "dude I'm a guy. I felt urges". -_-
Oh and...I HATE Matthew McConaughey!!
Verdict:
1/5 stars definitely. This movie was so bad that I missed entire dialogues and refused to rewind. I barely remembered the ending it was so bad. How it was supposedly rated "Best Movie of the Year" by ANYONE...I'll never understand. I might even go with giving it a 0. But I don't know if I can be that cruel.
Wedding Movie List:
1). Father of the Bride 2/5
2). My Big Fat Greek Wedding 4/5
3). The Wedding Singer
4). Made of Honor
5). The Wedding Crashers
6). Four Weddings and a Funeral
7). 27 Dresses
8). My Best Friend's Wedding
9). Bride Wars 2/5
10). The Wedding Planner 1/5
11). Bridesmaids 1/5
12). Muriel's Wedding
13). Runaway Bride
14). You Again 1/5
15). Something Borrowed 1/5
3). The Wedding Singer
4). Made of Honor
5). The Wedding Crashers
6). Four Weddings and a Funeral
7). 27 Dresses
8). My Best Friend's Wedding
12). Muriel's Wedding
13). Runaway Bride
16). I Love You, Man 4/5
17). The Hangover
19). The Hangover 2
20). Wedding Date
