The Groom's Review: BRIDE WARS

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Mike (plus) Wedding Movies (equals) Hilarious

So I'm introducing a new segment to the The Bowie Bride Blog. Today you will hear from my sweetheart, Mike. He has graciously agreed to write reviews on WEDDING MOVIES - both for my/the reader's amusement and simply because I think it's interesting to hear what grooms-to-be think of the movies many brides (and future brides) are obsessed with. I'm not saying I'm one of these women...My idea of a great "wedding movie" is Love Actually and that movie wasn't centered around a wedding really at all. But it was about love. And that's what weddings should be about, right? But I digress...

Without further ado, I give you my fiance Mike's Groom's Review on Bride Wars.

A Punch in the Genitals < Bride Wars ≤ 2 Hour Bachelorette Season Finale

by
Mike Hess

Hello, Bowie Bride World. First, I need to take a second to lament. Oh, Candice Bergen. What's happened to you? I remember you as the single mother on Murphy Brown who stood up to real life "Vice-President" Dan Quayle's sexism. How you've been continually cast in the past ten years as the upper-class ultrabitch, I cannot fathom.

Anyway.

The story of Bride Wars could fit on a napkin - make that a cocktail napkin.
A: Best Friends Forever get engaged to be married at the same time.
B: Miscommunication and happenstance turns brides into worst enemies, hi jinks ensue.
C: Big Finale Wedding - best friends no longer enemies, true loves found, etc...

I watched Part A with a detached sort of foreboding. Thirty minutes of stuff too boring to make a preview? Uh, oh. Part B was the preview for the movie but with 30 extra minutes of extra boring stuff thrown in to fill the edited space. Ok, so I laughed a couple times out loud. But let's get real here, I was about four beers deep at that point. Part C you've seen in every wedding movie, sitcom, short story, and Shakespearean tragedy ever published. So this film is no stranger to formula.

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Simplicity and cliche could probably be forgiven if characters in the movie had good chemistry and enviable traits. But, while the two couples seem to have good chemistry and interesting relationships, the relationship between the two starring women confused me throughout. I never saw them as particularly friendly, I never understood why they needed to have the same wedding at the same time in the same place, and I never understood why that friendship became petty hatred. Is that just the "bridezilla" stereotype taken to extremes, or am I missing something because I'm oblivious to most relationship signals? In any case, not understanding why these women were acting insane made the rest of the movie extremely irritating. For me, the relationship between these two women was half picking out clothes and half going crazy - and I hate that because it's crassly sexist... AND because at home I can watch a hot lady try on clothes everyday and (rarely) see her go crazy.

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At least the brides in this movie have dimensions, as grating as I found them. HOWEVER, the grooms in this movie are pretty much indistinguishable.

• They both react humorously (or don't react at all) to the crazy peculiarities of their fiancee.
• They both play X-box. All the time.
• They both do not care about the wedding.

Stereotypes, but whatever. But, when their respective fiancee's both go crazy without explanation and start committing crimes, do these men attempt to talk some sense into their brides to be? No, they play more X-box.

Kate Hudson: "Bye honey, I'm about to go commit some misdemeanors!"
Idiot Groom: "That's chill, babe. I'll be mashing the Xbox controller with my face because I'm too stupid to use my ham-fists! Love you! Have fun destroying our future!"

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Coming from a groom to be, I would NEVER watch Britty Leigh turn into a crazed psycho-bat over our nuptials. I'd calm her down and tell her that we're in this together, we are going to make it work, and I want to be a part of it the whole way through. THEN, we can play Xbox. Together. Simple enough, no?

Bride Wars is not just boring, it's a tease as well. Towards the end of part B, one of the crazy ladies decides to crash the other's bachelorette party to show her who's really sexy! Finally, I think, some payoff. Not to impugn Britty Leigh's startling beauty, but I'll spring a semi during a Barbara Walters Special any day. However, this was the least stimulating striptease scene I remember since Chris Farley's Chippendales sketch. I was insulted. I've been sitting here putting up with this for over an hour, and this is my reward? Throw a guy a boob! Swing that PG-13 rating around some, right? Come on, Hathaway! We've already seen 'em in Brokeback Mountain!

However, a quick bit of investigative journalism on the DVD case reveals the most fundamental problem: Bride Wars is hopelessly hamstrung by a PG rating. It's a movie for kids for butt's sake! Beyond the Disney-soft bachelorette party, every complex emotional issue is distilled down to one-dimensional mush incomprehensible even to grade schoolers.

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So basically, the message of the movie is this:
Why do these girls want to get married so badly? Because they always have! Why are they acting so crazily? Because brides always are! Got that young, impressionable girls? Remember, "You don't alter Vera to fit you, you alter yourself to fit Vera."

Aaaaaand cue fart sound.

Groom's Review Rating: NO STARS

What did you all think of Bride Wars?