Don't Back Down

The other day, Denise and I went to see The Wedding Crashers. If you haven't seen it, be forewarned: Though there was a boy of 8 in the seat next to me (what is wrong with some people?), this is not a movie for the kids. It probably isn't even for most adults. While I enjoyed the film to some extent, it isn't dinner table material for most people.

Keeping that in mind, it's an enjoyable film for the most part. I think that the reason that I didn't like it was that it just came across too rapid-fire and then it went on and on and on. Sure, there were funny moments in almost all of the setups. But there were too many of them. A good third of the movie could have been dropped with no significant effect on the rest of the story. If that's the case, you've got too much junk in there.

I've seen comparisons to Animal House. Not accurate. Animal House was a thing of beauty, subtly crafted to bring you into their world. At the end of Animal House, everyone wanted to rush Delta. Let's just say that I wasn't ready to start looking for weddings (or funerals, for that matter).

Rather than a movie, I felt more like I had warped into an alternate showing of a Saturday Night Live episode, albeit one that is perhaps a bit longer, and one that stays on the same topic throughout. From the rushed intro at a mediation table to the rapid-fire setup of the wedding crashing routine to the hyper-dysfunctional family that took these strangers in, it just felt like a setup.