Shotgun Wedding (2022)

User Review

• 

  d_riptide

  3 / 10

  Ok, so a shotgun wedding is “a wedding arranged in order to avoid embarrassment due to premarital sex which can possibly lead to an unplanned pregnancy.” I had no expectations going into Shotgun Wedding but after reading that, I hoped this film would lean into some kind of absurdity like that.
  
  Nope.
  
  
  The actual definition of a shotgun wedding is nowhere to be found in this plot but I honestly wish that was the full extent of this films waterfall of rote staleness. Yes, this is your predictable action-comedy wheelhouse so you know exactly what you’re getting but both the direction and writing from Jason Moore and Mark Hammer VASTLY underplay the ludicrousness of everything that happens here to the point where even though the setup is meant to be silly and juxtaposed, the execution constantly works against itself so nothing feels coherent or organic. It’s a combination of Die Hard and The Awful Truth laced with a jumbled presentation that wants to be Romancing The Stone, seemingly unaware that Bullock, Tatum and Radcliffe already tried that a few months ago and it hardly worked.
  
  But it’s the tonal woes that really drag the rest of the movie down. For a lighthearted adventure, it’s surprisingly gun-shy about committing to itself whenever the tone does a complete 180; it borders on apathetic. Stale action tropes, scenarios and set-pieces are further befuddled by sporty CGI and uninspired cinematography while dialogue feels canned and phony in the style of a badly written sitcom between the forced, cloying jokes that reek of desperation or the screwball banter that, despite its purpose, borders on awkward.
  
  The production design is fine but comes off as very limited, most of the music feels substandard, there’s a predictable antagonist and I’m sorry; for R-rated standards, the violence is aggressively tame. It’s the last thing you expect me to say about anything R-rated but it really hammers home the point of this film throwing most of these tired tropes at the wall and nothing sticking.
  
  And then you get unexplored conflicts, like the painfully obvious class disparity regarding the families of the bride and groom and the bloody pirates that look like they were cut from Uncharted; all of which were literally centimeters away from connecting into somewhat of a interesting story if the twists weren’t so telegraphed and obvious.
  
  
  
  I suppose watching J.Lo effortlessly balance being an overwhelmed bride, action heroine and full-blown goofball is the only passable thing here aside from her “chemistry” with Josh Duhamel; the rest of the cast seem to be aware of how laidback the project is trying to be. Editing is competent and the story does glide from one scene to the next without much delay in the proceedings but that makes everything all that more annoying.
  
  
  Resembling more of a pitch deck than a lavish party, this is yet another instance of a film loading up its barrels and still shooting blanks at empty air. It lacks romance and comedy and even plausible action and while you can argue it does have those qualities, none of them are memorable.

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