Wedding Crashers-A Work of Pure Genius
A disclaimer. I think Vince Vaughn has no business in show business. He makes no effort to play anyone other than himself. Either that or his real personality is totally different than his on screen persona and he is actually a high guy. If this is the case, then he has perfected only one character-the alcoholic a-hole born rich party boy, and thus his acting talents are margin at, very, very best. Now, with that said, Wedding Crashers is a funny flick and the premise is good enough, but the film is wildly overrated. All I heard for months was how funny the film was and that I MUST see it. When I finally submitted to mass peer pressure and forced myself to be inflicted with the irritating hum that is Vaughn I was perplexed by how funny many seemed to find this film. Let me clarify something. I am not a stuffy high-brow jackass, in fact, I thought Jackass was hilarious. Wedding Crashers just isn't THAT funny.
Surprisingly, I think Wedding Crashers is a brilliant, brilliant marking strategy. Look at what these guys did, it is truly impressive. They put wedding in the title of a film and still were able to get men to pay money willing to go see the film. Nice, very nice and manipulative in the extreme. Here is the twist, the studio executives and industrial psychologist that create this witch's brews marketed the film in such a way that women would go to see it, because it has to do with weddings, but men would go see it, due to the fact that the title implies doing something wrong, i.e. crashers, at weddings. Wedding Crashers, by its title implies breaking the rules, thus appealing to so many men who fancy themselves or long to be “rule breakers.”
In fact, most men are not rule breakers, they are rule followers and not truly individuals but followers, (going out with your frat buddies and getting falling down drunk after “the game” makes one a follower, not a rebel) but that is a much different article. The point being, the title itself is genius, the concept of two low-lifes crashing weddings and the fun-times they have, is of course, genius. Having the womanizing scumbags, which of course have big hearts under their superficial, trivial exteriors, meet women and fall in love, pure genius, as it then appeals to the Julia Roberts Drone Faction. This film is freakin' genius.
Now, while I think Vaughn is a joke, a big 6-5 joke, the casting of Vaughn was also genius, for he simply played himself and did not have to hold back one lick whatsoever. Genius. The rest of the casting including Owen Wilson, was also pretty slick and added to the quality of the film.
The screenplay is not crap, overall, it is well-constructed for the type of film that Wedding Crashers is and there are jokes a plenty. But, Wedding Crashers is not the hilarious masterpiece that I was lead to believe that it was. What is most surprising is that Wedding Crashers did not do better than its roughly $300 million dollar take, as it was masterfully manipulative.
Story C+
Acting C+
Visuals B-
Originality/Innovation C+
Enjoyability Grade C+
Home Theater/HD Factor B (Average run of the mill movie, in terms of visuals, but all the flesh tones will undoubtedly look good in high-def.)
Overall Grade C+
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