Wedding Daze
There is a hard and fast
rule of thumb in film reviewing. Anything with a title which replaces
the word "days" with "daze" is going to be as lame as all get out.
Case in point Wedding
Daze the screenwriting and directing debut of comedian/actor Michael
Ian Black, who was previously best known for being an eccentric supporting
character on the series Ed, as well as an ubiquitous talking head on the VH1
I Love The... series of specials.
Wedding Daze
spectacularly lives down to it's punny title, wasting a capable cast on a
story which could not have been more stupid if it had tried. (In all
fairness to Black, the film was apparently originally supposed to have had
the more generic, but infinitely less idiotic title The Pleasure of Your
Company.)
Wedding Daze can't
quite decide if it wants to be a romantic comedy, a black comedy, an
absurdist comedy or a situation comedy. It ends up being a big,
jumbled mess. It has some funny moments, but you have to wade through
some real crap to get there.
Jason Biggs plays a lovable
loser (well, he isn't quite as lovable as they'd like...) named Anderson.
When his girlfriend dies of heart failure on the night that he proposes,
Anderson decides he will never again find the perfect love.
A year later, his best
friend tired of Anderson's constant moping pressures Anderson to just dive
in and take a chance on finding a stranger for a new relationship. He
picks a cute waitress at the diner they are eating at, with whom he had
shared a brief moment of eye contact. Of course, because Anderson is
an idiot who does nothing halfway, instead of asking her for a date, he asks
her to marry him.
Little does he know that
Katie (Isla Fisher), the waitress, is at a bit of a life crossroads, too. Just the day before she had
been proposed to by her boyfriend. She realizes that she really does not love
him. Therefore Katie impulsively accepts Anderson's proposal as a way to get
out of the first one.
Now, we will overlook for a
second that this may be the dumbest plot ever. Also that when they
bring their families and friends into the circle it turns out that they are
all incompatible and unlikable a group of perverts, convicts, used-car
salesmen and circus people.
This story, I suppose,
could be mined for some humor. After all, it is essentially the same
ridiculous plotline as the long-lived sitcom Dharma and Greg. However,
instead of trying to take any kind of serious look at the story structure he
has created, Black stacks his deck with unlikely coincidences, dumb sexual
references, surly characters and absurdist plot twists.
Particularly mistreated are
the main couple. Jason Biggs has hit quite a few career low points
since his breakout role in the spectacular original American Pie.
As the years have passed and stinkers have multiplied, the good roles have
fizzled out for him and this will undoubtedly just pour a little more
water on the ashes of his career.
To add insult to injury for
Biggs, this film borrows liberally from the first Pie, with a stupid
comic sex scene which involves a pie and Biggs having to relive the sexually
inappropriate pep talk from his father here played with sleazy
matter-of-factness by Edward Herrmann rather than the the awkward
camaraderie of Eugene Levy. Also, if you look at the DVD case, you can
see they
have even swiped the red-stamp logo typeface from American Pie to try
to prop up this video release.
Isla Fisher, on the other
hand, would have seemed to have been on the verge of stardom after a
scene-stealing role as the unstable sister in Wedding Crashers.
Here she also plays a woman who is bordering on psychopath... but it isn't
funny here. It is just sad. She better hope no one gets around
to watching this film if she wants to keep any buzz going. Which is
possible, it's just being quietly slipped out on video without any
significant theatrical release after about a year on the shelf.
Besides, the adorable, sexy
and funny Fisher would seem less likely to end up with a loser like Jason
Biggs' character than anyone this side of Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Da
Ali G Show)... her real life fiancι.
I should have known better
than to expect anything more from Wedding Daze. Yet I hoped for
the best, because I liked a lot of people in the cast and have enjoyed
Black's past work. This total mess of a comedy just reinforces one
truism never overlook movie reviewer rules of thumb.
Dave Strohler
Copyright ©2008 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted: January 5, 2008.
