Monday, May 4, 2009

Monday’s Movie: License To Wed

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I invite everybody to participate in the weekly MEME and write about any movies, television or big screen, that you’ve seen over the past week and write about it.  Please feel free to use the above logo photo in your post and/or link back to the site.  I will post every Sunday Night or Monday Morning on the movie I’ve seen from the past week.  I’m hoping that there are other movie buffs out there who will enjoy the MEME as much as I’m hoping to!  The only small request that I have is that you rate the movie out of 5 bags of popcorn (so, 1 bag out of 5, 2 bags out of 5, and so on). 

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Movie:  License To Wed

Starring:  Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, John Krasinski, Christine Taylor, Josh Flitter

Genre:  Comedy/Romance

Runtime: 91 Minutes

MPAA Rating:  PG-13

Directed By: Ken Kwapis

With not much on TV one night last week, I chose to watch this movie on HBO.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE John Krasinski and have always enjoyed Mandy Moore.  Why not?  I mean, what’s not to like about a romantic comedy.

I’ll start with what is GOOD about this movie.  I absolutely loved this kid, Josh Flitter, who played the choir boy/reverend’s mentor.  His on-screen chemistry with Robin Williams was really great.  I also loved the supporting cast of characters.   There were small roles played by the actors from The Office, my absolute favorite TV show!   We had Angela Kinsey (Angela), Brian Baumgartner (Kevin), and Mindy Kaling (Kelly).  That was super fun!  I loved it when Brian was trying to learn belly dancing!  From Big Love was Grace Zabriskie (Lois Henderickson).  I really like her. 

The storyline to the movie itself was too predictable for me to free-fall into.  We’ve seen this movie before.  But, there were some cute scenes that included Robin Williams singing in the shower with his attack dog dressed in a reverend’s outift who was more interested in cheese puffs than protecting the home. 

What was NOT-SO-GREAT?  The movie was too predictable.  So, this is the story of boy meets girl, they fall in love, and they plan to marry.  Girl’s well-to-do family is convinced that Williams is the right man to marry the couple.  Of course, this reverend has a pre-marital wedding class requirement in which they enroll for a 3-week crash course.  It’s the reverend’s mission to try to show them what “real married life” would be like.  He assures the couple that he has a 0% divorce rate for all who have passed his training.  His training includes teaching them to fight fairly, deal with in-laws, go sexless, and live with children.  The children he provides are robots who drool, pee, poop, spit-up and throw trantrums.  They were a bit freaky looking, let me tell you!  The reverend also includes bugging their apartment as part of his antics.  The final training is expecting them to pass a BLIND driving test (imagine bride blindfolded behind the wheel and fiance trying to give verbal instructions in rush-hour city traffic).  In the end, the reverend’s attempts to get them to have a realistic view of what their future married life would be like separates them and the bride is off to Jamaica with her honeymoon ticket.  To make matters worse, she brings along her family.

As in all romantic comedies, there is always a happy ending and boy gets girl.  I doubt that’s giving anything away because boy gets girl 99% of the time (or vice versa). 

I think that the PG-13 rating was a bit generous.  Some of the “sex” discussions were inappropriate for tweens/teens.  If the “sex” stuff were removed, it would make a decent PG-13 movie that you could watch with your tweens. 

Out of 5 bags of popcorn, genre romantic comedy… I give this:

Please add your reviews into Mr. Linky!

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