WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!This movie serves as little more than a vehicle to provide Robin Williams with an age-appropriate role that provides him with the opportunity to behave in his tried and true zany manner. The problem lies in the fact that Williams’ performance comes off as a half-desperate attempt to prove he’s still full of life.
No one in their right mind could suggest that Williams has lost his knack for humor, but his over-the-top delivery seems out of place with his character. He plays a minister, Reverend Frank, who puts a young couple through hell in the form of pre-marital counseling.
The setup is pretty ridiculous and highly unrealistic. A young couple, John Krasinski and Mandy Moore, fall in love and get engaged, but due to Moore’s lifelong dream of getting married in her childhood church, the lovebirds face either a 2-year engagement or a three-week rush job.
Being a comedy, they naturally choose the latter option. Reverend Frank gives them all sorts of homework assignments that challenge the young couple including: abstaining from any more sex until the wedding night; seminars to highlight their differences and the quirks that bug each other; taking care of a creepy pair of robotic babies who do all the unpleasant things that regular children do, but to a decidedly more disturbing (though intended to be humorous) degree; and even trying to navigate each other down a busy street while blindfolded. In other words, it’s all a bit too much.
But License to Wed doesn’t stop there. Reverend Frank goes as far as to bug the couples’ apartment and has his young altar boy assistant follow them around, snooping on them and aggravating them into fights over seemingly trivial things. This all made me ask the dreaded question that can mean instant death for a movie: why? Why would a minister want to torment a couple that wants to get married to the point of unraveling their relationship? Why would a minister be so underhanded about all of his actions? Why would an altar boy take such pleasure at disrupting peoples’ lives?
None of it makes any sense and drives home the reality that this film goes too far in trying to pry a few laughs out of its audience. The situations; the approach; it’s all too much. The movie goes above and beyond what is necessary and reasonable to function as a comedy. Part of this is the fault of the writers for trying to manipulate viewer sensibilities for laughs and not respecting the limits of what can be funny and believable at the same time.
The flip-side of the coin is that audiences are getting dumber and the industry’s standards for humor have been in a downward spiral for quite some time. We really shouldn’t be surprised that toilet humor is commonplace and a means to an end in movies today because appealing to lowest-common-denominator laughs has made an obscene amount of money. Thankfully, License to Wed doesn’t sink to such Will Ferrell or Adam Sandler lows too often.
My other big complaint is with the smarmy, predictable ending. Moore decides to break it off and spends what would have been the honeymoon on vacation with her parents. Naturally, Krasinski goes after her and confesses his undying love, patching things up all squeaky clean. This sort of crap insults me. After the film was over, I leaned over to my fiancée and told her not to get any ideas.
Nearly all men, myself included, will not follow their woman of choice to a foreign country just to track her down and prove their love to them. First of all, we certainly don’t have the cash required to make such an expensive trek. Second of all, if we know you’re coming back, we’ll just wait. I really wish Hollywood would stop perpetuating this silly, idealistic fantasy version of love. It’s not real, and the fact that it keeps showing up in movies makes it all the more harder on girls when they realize that REAL love is nothing like the movies.
While this review may seem mostly negative, don’t think that I hate this film. I am merely indifferent due to its numerous shortcomings. License to Wed does connect with people who have either been in serious relationships, engaged couples, and those who have gone through pre-marital counseling. So, certain demographics can relate to the movie, which helps. Some aspects will ring all too true with some viewers, but these same people will be able to spot the ridiculous approach I have gone on about at length above.
In the end, License to Wed is your typical forgettable summer comedy that isn’t worth the price of admission.
RATING: 2.5 out of 5
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