License to Wed (2007)

Please don't spend money on this.

hyped garbage

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

License to Wed (2007): Dir: Ken Kwapis / Cast: Robin Williams, John Krasinski, Mandy Moore, Josh Flitter, Eric Christian Olsen: Horrid comedy about dictatorship. John Krasinski and Mandy Moore wish to marry but their relationship is flashbacked within the first five minutes. That is usually a sign that the comedy is a one joke deal. Father Frank runs couples through a test to indicate compatibility for marriage. Perhaps he should have sought a screenwriter who was compatible for writing decent material. More disturbing than funny with an ending that reeks corniness. Director Ken Kwapis created a comic insightful masterpiece with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but none of that ambition seems to be made available in this travesty. Here he creates a comedy on the same corny level as The Beautician and the Beast and Dunston Checks In. Robin Williams as Frank is a variation of Williams doing standup. He challenges this couple in irritating methods that will result in a punch in the face. Krasinski and Moore are hardly sympathetic and basically go through the motions. Josh Flitter as Williams' pupil deserves better material. Here he assist in setting up situations to test the couple but the role is not believable. Theme regards sturdiness of relationships but unfortunately it is within a film that nobody should have had a license to produce. Score: 4 / 10

I love Robin Williams. He always let's loose when he's got a good role behind him but put him in a priest collar and his references become Biblical. Actors John Krasinski and the incredibly attractive Mandy Moore play a couple about to get married, but their family signs them up for pre-marital counseling with Reverend Frank, played by Williams, joined by a mini-me, a junior priest who's half-Oompah-Loompah and half-bobble head. Even with Reverend Frank putting the pressure on them, John and Mandy are simultaneously being sabotaged by his idiot best friend DeRay Davis with the bad advice and her sister, Christine Taylor from "The Brady Bunch" and "Night Of the Demons," reeling from shellshock from her failed marriage. Wanda Sykes also has a cameo as an oddball maternity nurse. Along the way, there are animatronic babies getting assaulted, hidden microphones, a cartoon in the margin of a book, a dog in a collar, two brats with a price gun and a punched-out priest. The plot has a lot more in common with the screwball comedies of the Seventies. It's not a laugh-out loud funny movie. It bogs down in the scenes without Robin Williams, but there are several good lines and the love story does get resolved at the last minute. If you watch this, don't miss the outtakes during the credits.

License to Wed is a romantic comedy for people who have seen every other romantic comedy ever made but still have an irresistible urge to see one more shoddy, limp and lethargic version of the exact same thing they've watched countless times before. This film is so torpid that its story isn't made up of clichés, it's made up of allusions to clichés that it doesn't even bother to follow through on. These filmmakers just do barely enough work to establish which worn out rom-com trope a scene or character is supposed to represent, then the audience is supposed to fill in all the predictable crap that the movie glosses over. Without all that predictable crap, though, viewers are left with hazy, paper thin characters sloshing their way through an abortive plot to a conclusion that's like feeling the Almighty Plot Hammer pound a rusty nail into your skull.Ben and Sadie (John Krasinski and Mandy Moore) are a young couple that want to get married. And while the movie tries to fitfully graft some personality onto them, they're really never anything more than generic couple #1 from standard rom-com plot #3. Sadie wants to get married in her family's church, which means she and Ben have to pass the marriage preparation course of Father Frank (Robin Williams). Besides giving Williams a chance to lifelessly recycle the same shtick he's done for decades, Father Frank is a Machiavellian bastard who puts Ben and Sadie through Hell as a test of their commitment and compatibility. Or he might be doing it just because Father Frank is a sick twist. License to Wed never quite makes up its mind on that point.This movie is one long, uninterrupted series of forced and unfunny attempts at humor. None of the characters exist to be anything more than a set up or a punch line. None of the situations honestly resemble anything from anyone's real life. There are moments where it seems like the performers are acting in completely different films. The direction veers from over-the-top absurd to pitifully clinging to some sense of reality.This is a wretched piece of work for almost all involved. Robin Williams appears to be grudgingly paying off a bet. Mandy Moore looks utterly unexceptional. John Krasinski is doing an inferior rendition of the same stuff he does on The Office. Director Ken Kwapis demonstrates zero understanding of how to tell a joke, let alone a story.License to Wed is horrible. The only people who could possible enjoy it are those who've seen so many romantic comedies they have a Pavlovian response to the genre.

License to Wed is no masterpiece in any shape or form, but I didn't think it is a bad movie. If I had to sum it up in one word, I would say uneven. Because it is. The story is very predictable and has some dull and unbelievable parts to it, I personally could have done without the part with the "creepy" babies and the script is weak in places. Then there is the pacing, some of the movie does move briskly, but there are moments where it is dull as well, while the direction lacks solidity.That said, it is nicely filmed, the scenery in Jamaica was especially ravishing, and the soundtrack was good. While the film itself is uneven, there are some funny moments such as the introduction to Robin Williams's character and when Ben blows the trumpet into the bug that had been placed into the room. In terms of performances, Robin Williams gives the best one and provides the film's funniest moments. Mandy Moore and John Krassinski aren't as convincing but they are pretty cute.Overall, it was an okay comedy, it had its dull moments but see it for Williams. 6/10 Bethany Cox