WORDS: Dave Bradley, Arts Reviewer
Jennifer Lopez toplines this goofy nonsense which, despite a promising cast, is pretty much completely indistinguishable from all the other romcom twaddle she turns out.
Under the direction of Jason Moore (who specialises in female-centric fluff), this has JLo as Darcy Rivera, who’s in the middle of a huge wedding extravaganza in a fancy Filipino hotel (although this was actually filmed in the Dominican Republic). She and her hubby-to-be Tom Fowler (Josh Duhamel in a role nearly played by Ryan Reynolds or Armie Hammer) are arguing, mostly because their families are so annoying.
And what families they are: Tom’s Mom is the over-the-top Carol (Jennifer Coolidge riding high on the cred from TV’s The White Lotus) and his Dad is the blank Larry (Steve Coulter), while Darcy’s disapproving mother Renata (Sonia Braga) is furious that Darcy’s Dad Robert (Cheech Marin from Cheech & Chong) is on the guest list, along with his rather younger gal-pal Harriet (D’Arcy Carden from TV’s The Good Place). Got all that?
Darcy’s swoony ex Sean has also been improbably invited, and he turns up in the form of no less than ‘90s rocker Lenny Kravitz, who can’t really act but still looks kind of hot.
Darcy and Tom have a nasty fight just as heavily armed pirates attack, and the rest of the running-time is devoted to them dashing around frenziedly, as the rest of the ensemble wait at gunpoint while trying hard to steal back a laugh. Any laugh.
SHOTGUN WEDDING is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
2.5 out of 5 STARS
