The Wedding Ringer (Cinema Screening)

(spoiler free)

2015 has already been a mixed bag for the comedy genre, we have had the woeful Mortdecai, the massively more impressive The Interview and even the unintentionally funny at points Jupiter Ascending. I was pretty sure from the trailers that The Wedding Ringer would end up being a middle of the road comedy, for once I was spot on.

The Wedding Ringer has a solid idea, the main character Doug (Josh Gad) has to hire Jimmy (Kevin Hart) to be his best man as he doesn’t have many friends. To add to this he also needs a whole party of groomsmen, who Jimmy provides. This is a funny premise, of course the whole plot hinges on Doug’s future wife (Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting) and future family believing that all these guys really are the best of friends. Although this is a funny idea unfortunately it wasn’t executed very well meaning the potential for comedy was never fully met. With a larger budget a few bigger names could have been brought in as the supporting cast wasn’t great, the chemistry between them never properly clicked, on top of this a more accomplished comedy writer would have been beneficial. There were a couple of cameos in the movie, the names involved we so good as they are some well loved figures from popular culture past and present. However it is only their presence which was good as the content of their cameos was disappointing, more could have been done with both so I felt like they really missed opportunities with these.

The film itself is amusing rather than hilarious. The first time I saw the trailer I did laugh at a couple of elements, and there were a couple more of these moments in the movie but a lot of the jokes did fall flat or just resulted in a smile rather than a whole load of laughs, but as I say it was amusing. The funniest line in the film is actually the very last one, I really appreciated it and it was a great way to end the film. The comedy suffers because often the film lingered on scenes that should have been short and snappy but instead they were dragged out. In addition to this there were moments where the viewer should have been left to imagine certain things rather than be shown them as these moments that went a but further just cheapened the film. There was also far too many emotional moments in the movie, not every film needs to have a deep emotional message. The Wedding Ringer needed to realise what it was and stick to that, more enhanced comedy would have been better. However its saving grace really was Kevin Hart. All of the Hart films I have seen are just so watchable because of him, he is a great comedic performer and it is just a shame that he never quite gets the material that he deserves.

The Wedding Ringer is a perfect way to kill a few hours and you won’t ever be bored with it. The film is amusing and you will have a few laughs with it, I’m sure you will enjoy Hart’s performance and the few cameos too. However The Wedding Ringer is largely forgettable, its better than a lot of the awful comedies that we saw last year like Tammy and Sex Tape but it doesn’t come close to the genre leaders.

BIGGEST FLAW – Some scenes are drawn out too much

BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT – Kevin Hart’s performance

Rating – 5/10