Wedding Daze (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

Wedding Daze

WEDDING DAZE (2007)

Starring Jason Biggs, Isla Fisher, Joe Pantoliano, Edward Herrmann, Joanna Gleason, Audra Blaser, Ebon Moss-Bacharach, Chris Diamantopolous, Margo Martindale, Mark Consuelos, Heather Goldenhersh and Rob Corddry.

Screenplay by Michael Ian Black.

Directed by Michael Ian Black.

Distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer. 90 minutes. Rated R.

There is a hard and fast rule of thumb in film reviewing. Anything with a title which replaces the word "days" with "daze" is going to be as lame as all get out.

Case in point – Wedding Daze – the screenwriting and directing debut of comedian/actor Michael Ian Black, who was previously best known for being an eccentric supporting character on the series Ed, as well as a ubiquitous talking head on the VH1 I Love The... series of specials.

Wedding Daze spectacularly lives down to its punny title, wasting a capable cast on a story which could not have been more stupid if it had tried. (In all fairness to Black, the film was apparently originally supposed to have had the more generic, but infinitely less idiotic title The Pleasure of Your Company.)

Wedding Daze can't quite decide if it wants to be a romantic comedy, a black comedy, an absurdist comedy or a situation comedy. It ends up being a big, jumbled mess. It has some funny moments, but you have to wade through some real crap to get there.

Jason Biggs plays a lovable loser (well, he isn't quite as lovable as they'd like...) named Anderson. When his girlfriend dies of heart failure on the night that he proposes, Anderson decides he will never again find the perfect love.

A year later, his best friend – tired of Anderson's constant moping – pressures Anderson to just dive in and take a chance to find a stranger for a new relationship. He picks a cute waitress at the diner they are eating at, with whom he had shared a brief moment of eye contact. Of course, because Anderson is an idiot who does nothing halfway, instead of asking her for a date, he asks her to marry him.

Little does he know that Katie (Isla Fisher), the waitress, is at a bit of a life crossroads, too. Just the day before she had been proposed to by her boyfriend. She realizes that she really does not love him. Therefore Katie impulsively accepts Anderson's proposal as a way to get out of the first one.

Now, we will overlook for a second that this may be the dumbest plot ever. Also that when they bring their families and friends into the circle it turns out that they are all incompatible and unlikable – a group of perverts, convicts, used-car salesmen and circus people.

This story, I suppose, could be mined for some humor. After all, it is essentially the same ridiculous plotline as the long-lived sitcom Dharma and Greg. However, instead of trying to take any kind of serious look at the story structure he has created, Black stacks his deck with unlikely coincidences, dumb sexual references, surly characters and absurdist plot twists.

Particularly mistreated are the main couple. Jason Biggs has hit quite a few career low points since his breakout role in the spectacular original American Pie. As the years have passed and stinkers have multiplied, the good roles have fizzled out for him – and this will undoubtedly just pour a little more water on the ashes of his career.

To add insult to injury for Biggs, this film borrows liberally from the first Pie, with a stupid comic sex scene which involves a pie and Biggs having to relive the sexually inappropriate pep talk from his father – here played with sleazy matter-of-factness by Edward Herrmann rather than the awkward camaraderie of Eugene Levy. Also, if you look at the DVD case, you can see they have even swiped the red-stamp logo typeface from American Pie to try to prop up this video release.

Isla Fisher, on the other hand, would have seemed to have been on the verge of stardom after a scene-stealing role as the unstable sister in Wedding Crashers. Here she also plays a woman who is bordering on psychopath... but it isn't funny here. It is just sad. She better hope no one gets around to watching this film if she wants to keep any buzz going. Which is possible, it's just being quietly slipped out on video without any significant theatrical release after about a year on the shelf. 

Besides, the adorable, sexy and funny Fisher would seem less likely to end up with a loser like Jason Biggs' character than anyone this side of Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Da Ali G Show) ... her real-life fiancé.

I should have known better than to expect anything more from Wedding Daze. Yet I hoped for the best, because I liked a lot of people in the cast and have enjoyed Black's past work. This total mess of a comedy just reinforces one truism – never overlook movie reviewer rules of thumb.

Dave Strohler

Copyright ©2008 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: January 5, 2008.