Knight and Day, Date Night, Killers, The Lost City, Game Night, and The Bounty Hunter are some of the movies based on the same type of story as Shotgun Wedding recently released by Amazon. Grandfather and grandmother, an American couple in their 30s, have unexpected troubles that get stranger and stranger as the story progresses, only to end up reaffirming their love for one another. for the other. The plot is well seen, outdated and predictable, forced and sloppy, especially when it is done without subtlety or originality as in this film.
Shotgun Wedding is directed by the man behind Dawson’s Grows Up and Pitchfork and is just as full of Americanisms and pancakes as we’ve seen in previous trailers. Darcy (Jennifer Lopez) is tough, strong and determined, while her fiancé Tom (Josh Duhamel) is nervous and detail-oriented. Darcy wants to have sex every night, but Tom prefers to prepare the decorations for the upcoming wedding. Once they arrive at the resort where they are getting married, a group of masked pirates enter the scene. Their vows and love are put to the test as well as their ability to kill the pirates, one by one, through clumsy “slides” inspired by the Pink Panther. The relationship between Lopez and Duhamel is as natural as swollen lips after a botox session.
The dialogues of this film are quite deplorable, flooded with stereotypes, clichés and boring logic. It doesn’t help that Lopez and Duhamel are shouting for most of the movie instead of talking like civilized people. From the very beginning it already becomes a bit boring, and when the pirates appear, even more so. We notice that many scenes are improvised and that the grace of Lopez and Duhamel is conspicuous by its absence. First, Ryan Reynolds was set to play Tom, and I’m sure the dialogue and gaps in the acting scenes would have been so much better for him. However, Reynolds was wise enough to take a multi-year vacation after Red Alert, as well as after Adam Project, which was the right decision in my opinion. Additionally, before Duhamel landed the role, Armie Hammer (of The Social Network) was also set to play Tom, but allegations against him led to the idea being scrapped.
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Shotgun Wedding isn’t well-shot or well-edited, and the production design isn’t engaging, nor does it feature spectacular stunts, good dialogue, compelling performances, or believable characters. Lopez is gorgeous and Duhamel is very handsome, that’s the only thing I can praise because Amazon Prime already announced in January what I’m sure will be one of the worst movies of the year.