Bride Wars

Best friends Liv and Emma (Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway) are BFF (Best Friends Forever) and, since they were 6 and saw a wedding at the Plaza Hotel, have been basically obsessing over their big day and dreamt of a June wedding at the Plaza.  20 years on and in steady relationships, both girls get engaged within a day of each other and begin preparations with the aid of renowned wedding planner Marion St. Claire (Candice Bergen). 
 
Fortunately there are two dates available and they are able to secure 6th and 27th June but then the dreaded phone call comes from St. Claire to say her assistant made a mistake and only 6th is available, so either they must have their weddings on the same day or one must change venue or month (as the next June vacancy was 3 years away).  As neither wants to back down, their plans of being each others' Maid of Honour go out the window and battle begins.
 

 
Cue sabotage with Liv switching the spray tan container and turning Emma orange, so Emma switches hair dye and Liv ends up with blue streaks.  Not only that but Emma crashes Liv's bachelorette party and forces a dance off and sends Liv chocolates and cookies (supposedly from her fiancé) so that her wedding dress won't fit. 
 
When this started I knew that the narrative arc would see the best friends become worst enemies only to realise the errors of their ways and make amends at the end and, true to convention, that's exactly what happens.  This is filmmaking by the book with almost nothing fresh, original or amusing. 
 

 
I have no idea what the target audience is, probably young teenage girls and, if this is the case, it sets a terrible example.  Liv and Emma are annoying - Liv is a hard working (I am not sure what her job was, she appeared to be a lawyer) and hardnosed business woman whereas Emma is a spineless doormat of a teacher, never standing up to the colleague who uses her to get out of classes and duties that she doesn't want to do.  When the fighting starts, they turn into arrogant, selfish, materialistic bitches and I didn't care for either of them, I wanted both weddings to fail.  In amongst all this I didn't understand exactly what the hyped St. Claire was supposed to be doing as the two women were shopping for flowers, dresses, stationery, placemats, tasting cakes etc.  with no sign of the wedding planner. 
 
Another bugbear was Emma's seeming ability to walk out of school whenever she felt like it - getting a spray tan in the middle of the day - shopping and carrying out her sabotage when she should have been teaching.  A deleted scene shows that she had her class adapting her wedding dress and doing other sundry tasks for her wedding - what sort of curriculum was in place?  The three men in the film (two fiancés and Liv's brother) are completely anonymous and had three different actors been brought in half way through I wouldn't have noticed.  By the end I didn't even know what Liv's fiancé was called such was the perfunctory nature of his role.
 
My Best Friend's Wedding is a film I enjoy as it is witty, well acted and sharply directed.  This is none of those things and it doesn't help that Kate Hudson has real trouble with her enunciation - I could only work out about 25% of what she was saying.  This is about as shallow, pointless and turgid as a wedding-based film gets (and there's been a lot of them).  27 Dresses is currently on the Sky playlist and I'm seriously considering watching that as it's apparently better though, to be honest, that's not a ringing endorsement. 
 
You can't just put this negative review down to it being written by a male horror fan in his 20s - I watched it with my mother and she also thought it was dire! 
 

The Disc

 
Extra Features
The only feature of note is the Trivia Track which has some fairly interesting facts about the history of marriage and what things cost in the film (Chinese takeaways, rings, dresses etc.).  The prices can be taken with a pinch of salt because there is absolutely no source given.  he nuggets of information about wedding traditions eg. engagements and where 'something blue' comes from - the popularity of blue wedding dresses (until the mid-1800s) link with the clothing of the Virgin Mary - are mildly interesting. 

The other material ranges from the pointless (the EPK 'In character with...' from the Fox Channel), to the vaguely amusing (improvised scenes) to the tasteless (the two featurettes 'Meet Me at the Plaza' and 'The Perfect Wedding Dress' may as well have been sponsored by the hotel and the dressmaker Vera Wang as they are basically adverts). 
 

 
Video
It is a very nice and good quality high definition picture - you can make out the slight imperfections in people's skin and the colours look great, especially the scenes shot in Central Park. It is not the most challenging film or the one you would use to show off your system or the benefits of HD but it is very clear and sharp. 
 
*The pictures contained in this review are for illustrative purposes only and do not reflect the image quality of the disc.*

Audio
Again not the most challenging of soundtracks but the DTS-HD Master Audio track is wonderfully clear presenting the soundstage well.  But, as I've said, this just emphasises how badly Kate Hudson speaks - Anne Hathaway enunciates perfectly well, but Ms Hudson really seems to have a problem opening her mouth properly and forming vowels and consonants.

There is an excellent array of alternate audio tracks and subtitles in many different languages.
 

Conclusion

In my review of Driftwood I noted that institutions were great film settings and the same applies to social institutions, particularly weddings.  There are myriad wedding films and this is one of the worst I have seen.  It is supposed to be a romantic comedy and the prerequisite for such a film is a romantic subplot with comedy throughout - this has neither as the men are completely disposable and the comedic set pieces aren't funny.  The only character of note is Deb, Emma's bossy teacher colleague, and the only actor who emerges with any credit is Kristen Johnston who plays her.  Kate Hudson overacts horribly, Anne Hathaway puts in arguably her worst performance to date, Candice Bergen is barely on screen and everyone else is instantly forgettable. In addition the script is terrible with some woeful lines and exchanges such as:

Emma: Your wedding's gonna be huge, just like your ass at prom.
Liv: Your wedding can suck it.
 
Liv: If I was your wedding I'd sleep with one eye open.
 
This is another case of 'if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the film' only the trailer is short and you don't feel as if you have wasted 90 minutes of your life.  If you want a funny and moving wedding themed film, My Best Friend's Wedding is available on DVD and Blu-ray Disc - get that and give this a miss.