BRIDESMAIDS REVIEW

So, another old chick flick thunders onto the screen. But it doesn’t have Jennifer Aniston in it! Nor Sandra Bullock. So the other one MUST be in it!! Nope, no sign of Julia either. Promising start so! Maybe this could well be a chick flick with a difference. I’ll be brutally honest here, I’m not a fan of the chick flick genre at all! For the week I dreaded the review of this! I figured it’ll be the same old shite and the best bits were given away in the trailer!

The first 10 minutes I had a sour mug. Mumbling and grumbling all the way! I even contemplated walking out, because I had convinced myself this was going to be…as previously mentioned, the same old shite. Instantly I found the on screen characters annoying. And I mean really annoying. I wished for an Emmerich style explosion to kill them all in the beginning, but alas that was not to happen. So after about 15 minutes, I finally succumbed to the characters and their charm, wit and honesty.  Sure, while the story isn’t up to much, it basically follows a wedding where the maid of honor slowly destroys her friendship with the bride, in a jealous battle with the rest of the bridesmaids. Pretty standard stuff. Where this differs from other chick flick rubbish is the attitude. It’s very, very different. As a matter of fact, it almost breaks the mould.

There’s a number of comedic set pieces which are brilliantly executed. The dress shop and the plane journey to Vegas in particular. Tried as hard as I could not to laugh, I was forced to laugh out loud on a number of occasions. It’s not every day you get to watch…actually I won’t drop a spoiler. It’s after these minutes of brilliance that Bridesmaids starts getting predictable. There’s the inevitable love interest, played by Chris “WHAT FUCKIN ACCENT IS THAT” O Dowd. And then things take a turn onto really predictable street and safely back into the old “aaaahhhh” chick flick genre. As I said, it almost breaks the mould.

If Bridesmaids didn’t descend into the age old chick flick, we would have a serious contender for one of the funniest movies of the year. But alas, the studio gets these things right and they’ll be plenty of female bums on seats who won’t have overdosed on too much comedic antics which are normally more suited to male orientated comedies. And yes, the Hangover springs to mind! The reason being, is that was fresh and different at the time, almost similar to this!

Overall, Bridesmaids is funny, and even though it gets a little lost after the half way point and loses it’s balls, it’s certainly worth a watch. And even for the men who will be dragged along kicking and screaming, trust me, the bridesmaid shop scene will make it all worth while.