Made of Honor (2008)

I have not seen My Best Friend’s Wedding but I’m going to assume that there are some recycled and gender-reversed elements of that popular film at play in this 2008 rom-com. That being said, Made of Honor might actually be faring better than it ought to if it is something of a rehash. Aside from its strapping lead man, some witty dialog and a few amusing scenes, there isn’t a lot going for this mostly formulaic film.

After getting acquainted under amusing circumstances in college, Tom Bailey, Jr. (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) spend the next ten years as best friends. Tom designed the coffee collar and is loaded to the gills and keeps himself occupied as a serial dater when he’s not hanging out with Hannah as friends. Hannah strives for a more responsible life, working for a museum but still enjoys the companionship of Tom.

When business whisks Hannah away from the States for a while, Tom is bored and misses her. He comes to the realization that he has loved her all along and decides to ask her out when she returns. Unfortunately for him, Hannah returns to America with a wealthy Scottish fiancé and throws Tom for a loop by asking him to be her Maid of Honor. It’s a tightrope walk as Tom has to play nice with Hannah’s jealous bridesmaids while planning a wedding that he desperately wants to break up.

That pretty much tells you all you need to know, right? The concept of best friends realizing they love each other has been played out enough times that it barely fazes you anymore. The filmmakers dress it up with the amusing idea of having the bride-to-be select a man as her Maid of Honor. It may work for women who have experience in the cutthroat realm of being a bridesmaid but it seems like a silly construct to me. If he’s her best friend, wouldn’t it be logical just to make him a groomsman?

Perhaps I’m being too harsh on this film. Having a man as the Maid of Honor could have been used for a crude, Frat Pack comedy featuring nothing but trashy humor and vulgarity. The romantic aspect of the film holds it back from becoming sophomoric but it doesn’t help it avoid the general silliness that most chick flicks fall victim to. But those are the trappings that bring women into the theaters and until that changes, we will continue to have run of the mill films like this.

Of all the actors who are doing romantic comedies these days, Patrick Dempsey is among the easiest to watch. Perhaps it’s because he’s on a primetime soap/drama (Grey’s Anatomy), where he plays a similar charming and loveable sort of guy. He hasn’t done any action movies and even his moonlighting in the horror genre (Scream 3) he was a sympathetic kind of role. Given his resume, there’s not much in the way of preconceived notions about what films he should be doing and none of his roles have been iconic to the point where you have a hard time thinking of him as any other character. He also usually does a pretty good job with his characters, so I can’t hold it against him for sticking with what works.

There are a few nice location shots with some beautiful scenery but that’s not enough to make up for Made of Honor's predictability. That won’t bother the target audience of the film though. Women love this stuff and, seeing as I am not a woman, I do not. If you’re in the mood for silly, romantic escapism, you could certainly do a lot worse.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5

Enchanted (2007)

After several years worth of snarky, self-aware fairy tale-skewering Hollywood hits, Disney finally caught on and took aim at its own lengthy portfolio of animated cheese. Enchanted more than hits the mark. It destroys the mark altogether. Where one would expect Disney to hold back in reverence to its most time-honored fairy tale conventions, Enchanted lays it on thick, as if it were one of the cynical hecklers that live to berate schmaltz.

The film opens as if it were an animated film. A beautiful young maiden named Giselle has secretly caught the ire of an evil queen. Giselle wakes in the morning, sings a sweet song and receives help in getting ready for the day with the help of her animal friends. These early scenes had my eyes rolling and my gut busting with laughter. Make no mistake, Disney’s pulling no punches.

The evil queen tries but fails to dispatch of the maiden before her dashing prince of a son discovers and falls madly in love with her. It’s perfectly gag-tastic. As a last ditch effort, the queen throws the girl into an enchanted well and she ends up as a flesh and blood human being in our world. Wanting to break the idealistic Giselle’s outlook, the queen sent her to New York City, where she would be surrounded by cynical, impatient and rude people around every corner.

Dressed in a huge, poofy dress, Giselle walks the streets looking for help. Jaded and bitter New Yorkers just pay her no mind and she is left nearly desperate. She finds help in Robert Phillip (Patrick Dempsey), a divorced father of one. His daughter quickly falls in love with the idea of having a real princess in their apartment but Robert just wants to put her up for a night and get the nut out of his place.

Sure enough, her prince travels to our world in search of his one true love. He is “assisted” by one of his mother’s advisors, who tries to do everything he can to prevent the prince from succeeding. More of the culture clash humor arises from his quest than from Giselle’s predicament. There are plenty of laughs from her end of the story, but there is also the serious side, which dilutes the fun ever so slightly. You know, the moral of the story.

For all the goofy fun that Enchanted brings to the table, Disney couldn’t help but fall victim to some of the same conventions they roast. The ending is fairly predictable, but it is, after all, a fairy tale. What fairy tale isn’t predictable?

Enchanted is one of the rare films that just about everyone can enjoy. The snarky jibes at fairy tale clichés will appeal to the cynics while the idealistic romanticism will appeal to the rest of the crowd. It makes a few things very clear- First, there’s a reason why fairy tales are best left animated. The costumes and songs are all immensely ridiculous when being worn and sung by flesh and blood actors. Second, cynical views of life and happiness are only okay in small doses. Enchanted really manages to kill two birds with one stone and get two messages out there. Good job.

Also, credit has to be given to the actors. Amy Adams and James Marsden really sell their vapid characters. They go all out and appear to be uninhibited by any doubts about looking or sounding as silly as they do. Dempsey gives a committed performance as an all-too-straight talking dad who doesn’t wish to be bothered by any of Giselle’s delusional yammerings.

The writing is dead on, the acting is tight and the music is light and fun. Enchanted shows that Disney has a sense of humor and can pick on themselves like nobody else. It’s a solid film overall, but it’s not worthy of multiple viewings. You’ll either grow too cynical or to idealistic if you watch it too much. Pull this one out from time to time when you need a good laugh.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5

Scream 3 (2000)

It’s an improvement upon Scream 2, but this movie still doesn’t quite feel like it was necessary to begin with. Supposedly the Scream franchise was originally devised as a trilogy, which goes to show that thinking big isn’t always the best idea.

The best thing that 3 does is bring resolution to the series. Frankly, the first installment stands alone, with competent enough resolution and nothing left to be wondered. Scream 2 opened the book up again and left it hanging open in the midst of a weaker chapter. Scream 3 basically operates on the fact that the killer is lucky that Scream 2 didn’t end in Sidney Prescott’s death.

Scream 3 is written in a way that weaves in and out of the workings of the original. The killer in 3 is ultimately responsible for the events of the first film (I won’t explain how- see it yourself). However, no connection is established between the killer and any of the events of the sequel, essentially making Scream 2 even less important, save for the fact that a second wave of murders (Scream 2) helps the 'Stab' series of movies continue, resulting in the movie-inside-a-movie nature of 3.

While slightly better than the series’ middle chapter, Scream 3 overcomplicates not only itself, but the whole series, and leaves me wondering why we couldn’t just skip over 2 and make the Scream series a duology. (I realize the sequel vs. trilogy argument is why 2 had to occur, but my point is that they could have just been more creative about the whole thing)

RATING: 2.75 out of 5