“Shotgun Wedding” Movie Review
“Shotgun Wedding” is the tale of a wedding gone wrong.
Darcy (Jennifer Lopez) and Tom (Josh Duhamel) invite their friends and family to the Philippines for their wedding, but they quickly realize that marriage is going to be a lot harder than they thought if they can’t make it through the ceremony without fighting.
Darcy’s father invited her ex, Sean (Lenny Kravitz) to the wedding, which creates tension with the couple, and Tom’s mother, Carol (Jennifer Coolidge) causes Darcy to unleash her inner bridezilla.
While the couple is arguing right before they walk down the aisle, a band of pirates raids the party and takes the family hostage. Darcy and Tom have to sort out their pre-wedding jitters while trying to stay alive for their families.
The couple fights off the pirates all around the island and end up accidentally killing in cold-blood to protect themselves. Ultimately, Tom decides to surrender to protect Darcy, who is upset until she decides it’s up to her to save her husband and her marriage.
This movie had A-list potential, but the B and C-list cast, as well as the dry humor and unrealistic plot lines, caused the movie to tank.
Jennifer Lopez has starred in wedding movies before, and her acting in this one wasn’t too horrible. However, she looked awkward next to Josh Duhamel, who was supposed to be Armie Hammer, and then Ryan Reynolds.
If the scenes in this movie changed as fast as the actors for the male protagonist, maybe the film would’ve been a bit more interesting.
When is Hollywood going to give Jennifer Coolidge a starring role? She stole the show in this movie, even as a side character, that left viewers wishing for more of her eccentric personality and less of… whatever the rest of the movie was.
The jokes got old.
The amount of grenade jokes left viewers wondering if they were watching a wedding-doomsday movie or an episode of Jersey Shore. The film relied too much on comedy to be taken seriously as an action flick.
Most viewers aren’t experienced with how pirates work, but if there’s a hostage situation, and they don’t get what they want, wouldn’t they just resort to killing people instead of literally letting Tom and Darcy exchange vows in front of them? Even characters in the film pointed out how they miraculously weren’t dead yet.
This film just felt like a lame excuse from Amazon to try to boost its ratings and give viewers a fun, summer flick in the winter months.
Rating: 2/5
Adrianna Gallucci is a first-year student majoring in journalism. To contact her, please email amg7989@psu.edu.
