Being a guy, I always wonder, with these slapstick comedies that revolve around women with a wedding as a backdrop, do grown women over the age of 25 really become THIS immature? In "Bride Wars", you see two very attractive women pulling childish pranks on one another in preparation for their respective weddings, and somehow some women went to see that movie in droves. "You Again" received a spanking from major critics, most of whom were male, but actually turned in a profit at the box office.
I'm still really curious to know what women think when they see two women in their 20's pulling mean, callow tricks on each other, then seeing two other women in their 50's, who are attractive for their age I might add, trying to one-up each other while taking dance lessons in preparation for a wedding. Can real life women actually relate to these women on screen? Do they think their antics are funny?
Speaking as a man (whether or not that's important is up to you, the reader), I found these shenanigans ranging from cat fights to forced slapstick comedy neither amusing nor believable. If I saw my Mom acting the way either Jamie Lee Curtis or Sigourney Weaver do on screen, I would get angry, and quick.
But I digress. This movie starts out on a good note showing Marni Olsen (Kristen Bell) in high school with glasses, braces, and a bad case of acne. Although the nerd stereotype is a bit overdone here, somehow Bell succeeds in being unglamorous to the point where we, the audience, feel for her.
Her main tormentor is popular cheerleader J.J. (Odette Yustman), who is smoking hot, but effectively easy to dislike. However, the first mean prank you see pulled on Marni is her being crowd-surfed out of school by a group of jocks, including that mean cheerleader. Marni seems to be angry at J.J. and only J.J., somehow forgetting that she wasn't the only one in the crowd.
Fast forward less than a decade later, and Marni has lost the braces and glasses, is a successful P.R. executive, and looks as hot as she did in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (2008). Her post-high school transformation is one many people would envy, but none of that matters when she finds out that her older brother is about to marry J.J., who is now known as Joanne.
Marni's mother Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis) tries to convince Marni to put the past behind her. That is, of course, until it's revealed that Joanne's aunt is Ramona (Sigourney Weaver), a woman who used to be "best friends" with Gail in high school. However, you know that unresolved animosity brews underneath the facade of these two women when a flashback reveals Ramona pushing Gail into a pool. Why she did this, the movie never really explains.
The rest of the movie remains laugh-less as Kristen Bell seems to trip over herself and bang her head into several different people and objects, almost as if she's Curly from The Three Stooges. One scene shows her falling off a running path into a nest of red ants. Her love interest tries to help her, but their heads bump into one another. Nuk nuk nuk!
Of course, when Marni and Joanne trade blows, there is the inevitable catfight with dialogue so vapid and uninspired. When Joanne throws a dish at Marni, she replies, "Ooh, kitty likes to scratch!" I don't know what other movie I've heard that phrase in, but it's probably because it has been in at least six other films.
With such hackneyed verbal taunts comes a fight that fails to intrigue. Dishes get broken, Marni smashes a vase Joanne got as a gift that she claims is "so expensive" (yet looks like one you could get for $2 at Goodwill), and Joanne dumps some sort of soup over Marni's head. Are you laughing yet? You wonder what is wrong with these people, and why such hot women have maturity levels that make Zach Galifianakis look like Don Draper. Even worse, once the pratfalls come to a close, the movie tries to sugarcoat itself with messages of peace, love and reconciliation, and the rest of the movie is boring.
I thought Betty White would be the breath of fresh air in this movie. After all, she was hilarious as a "Saturday Night Live" host last year. Unfortunately, she has no really funny lines, and a really dumb gag involving false teeth. Kristen Chenowith is also equally wasted as a flamboyant Southern belle wedding planner who seems to be in the wrong movie. There are also a handful of subplots that go nowhere, and scenes completely irrelevant to the story that go on forever. The cheerleader's dance to Kris Kross's "Jump" is energetic, but belongs in another "Bring It On" sequel.
"You Again" is a great looking movie with likable actors in it. Unfortunately, the lead actresses are forced to act childishly, then mend their ways through fluffy speeches about family values, aided by background music borrowed from past episodes of "Full House". It could have been a memorable film, but somehow chose not to be and went the "My Best Friend's Wedding" route.
