686. The Big Wedding (2013)

Starring: Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, Katherine Heigl

Director: Justin Zackham

Running Time: 89 mins

The Big Wedding is an American film about a couple, divorced for years, who must pretend to still be married after their entire family comes together for a wedding.

Well, this was a fantastic demonstration of the fact that, despite having an incredibly talented all-star cast, without a decent story, or even the slightest hint of comedy, you’re only going to get a tedious and disappointing film.

I’ll start with the cast, seeing as that is probably the reason that anyone would be interested in watching this film (that applies to me too). With huge names like Robert DeNiro, Diane Keaton, Katherine Heigl, Robin Williams, Amanda Seyfried and Susan Sarandon, who have all had the odd successful rom-com in their time, you’d expect some quality to come out of this, but you’d be wrong.

Now, I won’t pin the entire blame on the actors, because the writing of this film was so poor that they were given little to do with their characters and were all deeply dislikeable, but they all seemed incredibly unenthusiastic about their characters, turning the one element of this film that you really looked forward to into a huge disappointment.

Of course, being a rom-com, or even worse, the very common species ‘Weddingus rom-comus‘, the story was incredibly predictable, and I’ll accept that. What I couldn’t accept was how drab the atmosphere was in this film. This genre is meant to be, while chaotic, all a bit of a nice laugh and enjoyable to watch, even if it’s terrible, but this had so little in the way of any enjoyable plot lines or jokes that I really struggled to every be entertained by it.

And worst of all, it’s got a terribly inconsistent and unconvincing feel to it. One minute it’s all R-rated and rude, and the next it’s trying to be a sweet, generic rom-com, which was hugely frustrating to see, ultimately making watching this film a real trudge, so that’s why it gets a 3.7.