Review: Bridesmaids

What are little boys made of? What are little boys made of? Frogs and snails, and puppy-dogs' tails;
That's what little boys are made of.
What are little girls made of? What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice, and all that's nice;
That's what little girls are made of.

I don’t think so.  Not in Bridesmaids at least.

It was only a matter of time before Judd Apatow inserted his brand of comedy into a female-centric story.  See if any of these Apatow gems ring a bell:  Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Talladega Nights, Knocked Up, Superbad, Step Brothers, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek.  Raunchy, sometimes filthy, so wrong on so many levels…..and absolutely hilarious.  Spit coke out of your mouth funny.  Laugh out loud in the theater to the point that you miss half the movie because you are still laughing about the last line….even when you are by yourself!!!  Well Bridesmaids had its moments but wasn’t quite to that level.

Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph, both of SNL fame lead a cast of “I recognize her”’s, all of whom do a great job.  Kristen Wiig is naturally hilarious and has some side splitting lines.  The interaction between she and the flight attendant on the airplane ranks up there with classic movie flight fights like Ben Stiller’s in Meet the Parents and Billy Idol’s in The Wedding Singer.  Supporting actress Wendi McLendon-Covey steals the show as a crude wife and mother of 3 boys that hates her life and is thrilled to be in the wedding party to escape her existence.

Bridesmaids was billed as the female version of The Hangover.  It wasn’t.  It had potential to be on par with it but took itself much too seriously too many times to get there.  The beauty of The Hangover is that it never tried to be dramatic.  Bridesmaids plays too much on the producers need to attract the female audience with a sappy love story and a painfully awkward broken friendship arc.

I’m also not a huge fan of gross-out humor and there’s plenty of it to go around.  A little is okay, but the “is this really happening” scenes went on too long. 

I see what all the commotion is about, but maybe that was the problem. Expectations were as lofty as a Chicago socialite wedding.

My review: 

2/4, C, See it during a matinee