When I hear the words “wedding-themed romcom starring Jennifer Lopez”, I reach for my pistol. And yet Shotgun Wedding is a pleasant surprise. For starters, it’s consistently funny even though the set-up sounds like the dustiest of clichés: an over-planned and ludicrously expensive destination wedding goes horribly wrong, forcing bride Darcy (Lopez) and groom Tom (Josh Duhamel) to wonder about their compatibility.
In this case, they’ve flown everyone out to an island resort in the Philippines, but the culture clash between in-laws and the arrival of Darcy’s ex (Lenny Kravitz) — who, shockingly, never RSVP’d — turn out to be the least of their worries. Minutes before the ceremony, pirates (not the jolly sort) invade and take all the guests hostage, forcing Darcy and Tom to work together to save them.
The direction by Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) is cake-knife sharp, while Mark Hammer’s script never wastes a gag, especially one that involves pineapples. But what really helps is the casting of sleeper agents in the supporting roles, such as the divine Jennifer Coolidge (The White Lotus) and protean D’Arcy Carden (The Good Place, Barry). Actually, everyone is pretty funny here, even Kravitz and the often annoying Lopez, who for once manages a reasonable simulacrum of spontaneity. It’s still irksome that the script contains so many lines where people remark on how “hot” she is, but perhaps that’s one of the vows film-makers must make when they marry their projects with a star.
★★★☆☆
On Amazon Prime Video from January 27
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