Saturday, November 29, 2008

License to Wed (2007)

I am not one of those people who get all upset every time someone makes a comedy that points a finger at something resembling religion. I loved Bruce Almighty and the musical Altar Boyz, and I would love to see Saved!. But this movie was offensive on religious grounds as well as comedic ones. Robin Williams as a member of the clergy is just about the scariest thing I can think of, and his religion-based humor was not only tasteless, but also just boring. Mandy Moore plays a mindless zombie who floats through the movie without putting any thought at all into how she's acting or what she's saying. Surely she has to realize that these "exercises" are the requests of an insane man, and no rational person would subject themselves to them. Which is why John Krasinski earns the movie's 1 star, as he accurately portrays an average, sensible, ordinary guy, who realizes that trying to reenact a fight he and his fiancee have never had is hardly the building blocks for a good relationship. He reacts with appropriate shock and confusion when his fiancee loses all her personality and opinions and doesn't see why it should be a problem for him to suddenly carry four screaming kids around a grocery store, two of which are fake. Unfortunately, he plays it so well that there's no way he can make the ending ("oh ho ho, you meant well all along!") plausible. What nonsense. 1 star.

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