16. The Wedding Ringer - The Moment Where The Film Is A Frankingstein*
Jeremy Garelicks headless turkey of a comedy barely cracked a profit earlier this year, despite being almost, but not quite, entirely unfunny. Kevin Hart and Josh Gad are both excellent comic performers, and together they just about zap the films Frankensteinian script to stumbling, tottering life - at least, for long enough that it can get to the end without falling over. Why Frankensteinian? Well, this film isnt just derivative. It literally rips off every other wedding-themed film thats made some money in the last couple of decades. Whole scenes belonging to other, better movies somehow find their way into The Wedding Ringers running time: heres My Best Friends Wedding, theres The Wedding Singer; over in the corner you can see The Big Wedding, and at the bar The Wedding Crashers is definitely hitting on My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The Big Wedding from last year is engaged in a drunken dance off with Thats My Boy from 2012. Thats not even counting the fact that the central premise is taken almost entirely from 2005s Will Smith vehicle Hitch (and Kevin Hart is many things, most of them good, but hes no Fresh Prince), or that the many horrible things that happen to Josh Gads genitalia remind you of nothing so much as the many horrible things that happen to Jason Biggs genitalia in the American Pie movies. Fundamentally, its a film that makes you want to turn it off and watch other films instead. Thats never a good thing. In fact, 2001s The Wedding Planner is actually namechecked in this film: even the characters are being primed to go and see better wedding movies instead. *1000 Internet Points to the British TV aficionado who can pinpoint where this joke is from.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
