Friday, May 16, 2008

Screening Log - Made of Honor

Anyone who's been following along knows that my powers of suspension of disbelief are enormous. (We are talking, after all, about someone who adored Sweet Home Alabama, gaping plot holes and all!) But even my credulity isn't unlimited, and Made of Honor was just too forced, too awkwardly constructed, too false.

Even if the movie had been put together a little more smoothly, it would still have been a formulaic and not-terribly-funny chick flick outing. But as it is, the creators felt the need to beat the audience over the head with every vital symbolic moment ("Look! He can say 'I Love You' to dogs, but not to humans! He's emotionally stilted, see?!") and, perhaps most absurdly, to create a bizarre caricature and call him the competition. When Patrick Dempsey's rival is a cartoonish Scottish lord who lives in a grim medieval castle, hunts his own venison, and tosses trees for fun, is the outcome really ever in question?

I'd honestly be curious to know if this movie was released in the UK. I could picture it touching off riots in Glasgow - or at least, cementing British folks' already firm opinions that your average American (and certainly your average Hollywood producer) is utterly ignorant about the world outside her own borders.

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