‘Bride Hard’ Review: Rebel Wilson’s Laugh-Free Action Comedy Is An Invitation You’ll Want To Decline

WHEN A MOVIE IS SO DIRE YOU BEGIN TO SUSPECT YOU’RE IN IN A BAD TIME BEFORE The TITLE CARD DROPS, YOU CLING TO WHAT Tiny Scraps of Fun Are To Be Found Like Shards of Wood.

SO: Oscar Winner Da’vine Joy Randolph Desertves Much, Much Better than Her Minor Supporting Role in Bride Hardbut she’s Respectable Game Serenading An Unborn Baby with “My Neck, My Back” or Shameless Flirting with A Man of the Cloth. Justin Hartley Offers Some Nice Bits of Physical Comedy As An Arrogant Idiot Who Incorretly Fancies HimSelf A Badass.

Heroine Sam (Rebel Wilson) Describing Her Bridesmaid Look As “Like IF Ariana Grande Joined the Real Housewives” and “Like the Dancing Girl Emoji” is Funny, and Accurate. Her Use of Curling Irons as Impromptu Nunchucks is Inventive, Thought Minus a Point for the Non-Zinger “OH NO, YOUR MASTUURBATING HAND” WHEN SHE BURNS A Goon With One.

Finally, I was Tickled by a Henchman Menting his Day Job As A Wedding Singer. Not that we get to see him perform or anything. It’s Just A Detail Urdexted Enough To Be Amousing.

Those morsels aside, the action of comEDY DIRECTED BY SIMON WEST IS A TEDIUS Use of 105 Minutes – Short On Laughs, Light on Thrills and Devoid of Heart.

The Plet (Cece Pleasants and Shana Steinberg Are Credited with The Script) is MOST Eficient Described as “Bridesmaids Meets Die Hard. ” Less Economically, Is About a Secret Agent Named Sam Who Struggles With Work-Life Balance and A Lone-Wolf Mentality. Connection Has Grown Distant Thanks to Sam’s Habit of Suddenly and Inexplicably Going Awol – As Demonstrated in An Opening Scene Where Sam Ducks Out of Betsy’s Bachelorette.

Sam Does, However, Manage to Make It To Betsy’s Wedding, Held on A Private Island Estate Owned by Betsy’s In-Laws-To-B. Her Presance Turns Out to be A Godsend WHEN, A FEW Minutes Into the Ceremony, The Place Is Swarmed By Armed Mercenaries (Stephen Dorff Plays Their Leader). As the Wedding Party and Their Guests Panic Inside the Mansion, Sam Puts Her Skills to Use by Skulking AROUND The PROPERTY AND PICKING OFF BADDIES ONE.

As Premises Go, It’s Not A Terrible One. And as castes go, this is a surprising good one. In addition to all of the actors named above, Sherry Cola Pops Up as Sam’s Work Pal, Nadine, and Anna Chlumsky as Betsy’s Uptight, passive-aggressive Future-inl.

WHICH ONLY MAKES IT More Baffling How Slapdash and Leaden the Results Turn Out to Be. Insthead of A FIRST ACT MIGHT ALLOW FOR US TO KNOKTSE Characters and their Relationships Well Enough to Care About them, We’re Whisked Right Away Into A Confusion. AT LEAST Love Hurtsone of this year’s Other SO-BAD-OIEMS-FAKE ACTION COMEDIES, PARTLY REDEMED ITSELF WITH Some SOLID ACTION. The Fistfights and Explosions Here Are Too Chops and Chaotic to Admire.

The Zingers Range from Uninspired to GroanWorthy – “Piece of Cake,” SAM QUPS AFTING OFF A GOON IN THE Vicinity of a Dessert We Donulya Get to Seya Being Destroyed imoji in my notes. The look is overly slick in that everyone look too Bright and Airbrushed to be real, Yet also Drab in that Backdrops of this Suppedly Luxion Mansion Feel Cheap and Generic. Somehow, Even the Cat Photos (Sam’s Cover Story Is That She Design Plinths for Feline Awards Shows) Are Not Very Cute.

But Bride Hard‘S MOST UNFORGIVABLE SIN IS ITS TOTAL INDIFFERENCE TOWARD ITS Characters, Who Are Thinly Conceived They Might As Well Be Cardboard Cututs. The One Person with A Discernible Personality Is Sam, and She Is Defined As A Terrible Friends Even aside from the work-Mandated lying and obfuscating. She humanates virginia at the rehearsal dinner for no reason, and tries to talk Betsy Out of Her Wedding Secunds Before She Walks Down The Aisle, Invisting “This isn” and Youa ”. Married. .

Despite Multiple Pitch PerfectS Serving as Proof that Wilson and Camp Have, In Fact, Met Before, They Have The Chemistry Here of Two Total Strangers.

Perhaps the Characters Themselves Realize the Stakes Are Nil, Given That in the Minutes After They Taken Hostage, Several of Them Engage in a Singalong for No Reason. Nor do they seem concerned about discussing their plans to escape or fight Back Mere Feet Away from the Armed Gunmen.

Nothing Feels Real Here, and None of It Matters. The Best Gift You Can Give Any of the People Involved With This Mess Might Be to Rsvp No to This Party, and Pretend It Never Happened.