Movie Review: BRIDESMAIDS Starring Kristen Wiig

I have to apologise in advance, it was the lady friends idea “lets watch Bridesmaids” she said, I have to be honest I really didn’t mind. When Bridesmaids was first released I was very quick to write it off as another bad romantic comedy but, since it’s release the movie has become very popular and I have heard some pretty impressive things about it, especially in relation to it being better than Horrible Bosses (it’s not).  After watching it, I think I am going to go with my initial thought on movies from now on as this really was not worth 2 hours and 10 minutes of my time.

Starring: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Wendi Mclendon-Covey, Jill Clayburgh, Ellie Kemper, Melissa McCarthy and Chris O’Dowd - Bridesmaids

The Plot

Was there one?  Honestly this is the biggest waste of two hours ever. The story centres on Annie (Wiig), a woman who is pretty down on luck. Annie started her own business during the recession which went to the wall since then she has been dumped by her boyfriend and now finds herself leading a lonely life with extremely creepy flat mates (Matt Lucas and Rebel Wilson).  Annie’s best friend Lillian (Rudolph) is newly engaged and she wants Annie to be her Maid of Honour, down on her luck and broke Annie is pushed to the side by Lillian’s new rich friend Becca (Kemper) who takes it upon herself to set up lots of expensive Bacholorette parties and showers, sounds good right?

The Verdict

Seriously, If you have 2 hours to waste then believe me Bridesmaids is a good way to do it, I really didn’t think it would be possible to see another movie as bad as Bride Wars.  Bridesmaids isn’t that bad but it comes a very close second, I don’t think it really knows what it wants to be and I can’t believe this done so well at the box office, it was released in Summer 2011, believe me there are better things to be doing on summer nights than sitting watching this garbage.

I got my judgement seriously wrong as I had this billed as a romantic comedy movie, you know?  Chick flick kind of thing, it’s not that at all (apart from chick flick) and to think they have even labelled it with comedy is funny in itself.  Bridesmaids did give me a couple of laughs, although I can only recall one memorable scene from the whole movie.  It’s pretty much The Hangover done sober and starring women as apposed to men, only problem is, it’s no where near as funny as the Hangover.

I can’t believe they were able to stretch such a thin plot over 2 hours and 10 minutes, I’m really pleased I didn’t hold out for the extended Blu-ray version, I may have self harmed.  About 1 hour 25 into the movie I said to the lady friend, do you think we should be
further on with this by now.  I really felt like that far into the movie we should be getting into the main plot, turns out we were in the main plot it just wasn’t compelling enough to keep your interest.

I didn’t find the lead character Kristen Wiig funny at all, the comedy from her was almost cringe worthy.  For me Bridesmaids is saved in part by the inclusion of Melissa McCarthy (Mike & Molly), she is by far the funniest of the leading ladies, only problem is she’s not in
it enough, same goes for Irish actor Chris O’Dowd he was pretty funny here, unfortunately he’s not given enough screen time to really make it work.  Without these two Bridesmaids may well have fallen flat on it’s face, although in my opinion it did anyway.

There really wasn’t anything terribly entertaining about Bridesmaids and I have to say that my initial thought on the movie would have been right, just don’t bother.  If you want to see something funny then watch The Hangover or Horrible Bosses, hey, you could even watch Mike & Molly on Comedy Central, as I really don’t recommend Bridesmaids at all.

The Soundtrack

It’s available from Relativity music, priced around £10.99 on iTunes, I certainly wouldn’t pay that for it.  I really don’t remember to much about the music (maybe I was asleep).  One song in the movie Ice Cube and Dr Dre’s “Natural Born Killaz”, probably one of the movies funniest moments, unfortunately though, it’s not featured on the official soundtrack, maybe Cube and Dre decided that Bridesmaids is not quite hood enough for gangster rap.

Would I watch it again?

No, it’s really that simple and I think you may have guessed that already.

Rating: M