Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The best way to describe License to Wed is by way of simile. Once, I had to do a recon of a Forward Operating Base (FOB) about 50 miles from the Funplex here. I leaned out the door of the Blackhawk and watched as the landscape rolling beneath me changed from vast swatches of green date farms, to flat, irrigated fields, to geometric dunes. Finally, we seemed to cross some sort of line where habitable life ended, and the earth was just flat, sun-scorched rock. It looked like the surface of the moon, with about as many craters. Surely, they wouldn’t put a FOB here, I thought, in the middle of country that could only be described as God-forsaken. But then I saw the T-walls and the Compartmentalized Housing Units. And that’s what License to Wed is like—being stuck in an outpost in the middle of a wasteland.
Simply put, License to Wed recycles every desiccated old cliché about marriage and wraps it around a ludicrous plot. Robin Williams plays a deranged (but actually brilliant—at least according to the movie) Reverend who puts happy couple Ben and Sadie (John Krasinski and Mandy Moore) through a completely insane pre-marital counseling program. So, how fat, dumb, and lazy is this movie? Well, Williams’s Reverend Frank’s denomination is never mentioned (kind of an important point for a religious figure). And the reason they continue the program, even when it veers into irresponsibly dangerous territory (having Sadie drive through downtown Chicago blindfolded with Ben as her navigator, for example) is because Sadie is dead-set on being married by Reverend Frank.
How lazy is this movie? Let’s look at the characters and jokes, shall we? Krasinki and Moore are both charming actors, but their characters are barely there. A major plot point hinges on Ben’s inability to write his wedding vows (the movie never acknowledges that some people just can’t put their feelings into words), and this is supposed to be evidence of his slackerhood. Yet, the movie never shows us any other behavior that might back this up. Sadie’s attention to the details of the wedding is supposed to be evidence of her controlling personality, yet she’s hardly a Bridezilla, and, again, is presented as anything but controlling. And of course we have Ben’s obligatory African American best friend, who’s married with children and can’t stop complaining about what an emasculating hell it is. He’s a lame sitcom plot waiting to happen.
And then there is the filler. When Ben has their wedding rings engraved “Never to part” the engravers screws up and writes “Never to fart.” And the movie milks this joke for a solid five minutes. Reverend Frank takes Ben and Sadie to a maternity ward where they watch women giving birth, and the movie can joke about the fact that it’s very painful and women will demand painkillers once the contractions begin. Heard that one before? It also jokes about how frantic and grossed-out expecting husbands get when their wives go into labor. Bet you never heard that one before, right? And then Reverend Frank gives Ben and Sadie robotic babies to lug around to simulate parenthood. When Ben tries to change one, it sprays him with simulated baby-piss. Man, the baby-pissing-on-the-man-changing-it gag never gets old. Oh wait, yeah it was old back in Three Men and a Baby.
What’s truly disappointing is how many talented actors are wasted in this movie. Krasinksi’s Office co-stars Mindy Kaling, Angela Kinsey, and Brian Baumgartner all show up in joke-free cameos. As do Grace Zabriskie and Rachel Harris. As Sadie’s boozy, bitter, divorced sister Christine Taylor seems primed and ready to bring the funny, only to be given a part almost totally devoid of any humor.
Going in, I expected to be annoyed by Robin Williams, but even he was flat and listless. Reverend Frank is supposed to be unorthodox and magical (I’m assuming), but as the part is written and played by Williams, he just seems certifiable. By the end I would have even welcomed one his manic coke-fueled free-associating tirades circa-1985, but that energy seems to have left him. In the outtakes shown over the end credits, Williams ad-libs a murder joke about O.J. Simpson that would have only warranted a chuckle in 1994, so maybe he’s completely lost the ability to be funny.
For a movie that has a maniac priest as its central character, License to Wed has a generically secular viewpoint. Along with never revealing the church’s denomination, nothing in Reverend Frank’s bag o’ tricks has any Biblical connotation. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the Bible is ever read from or mentioned. The script could change Reverend Frank into a marriage councilor with a simple FIND/REPLACE command. No rewriting necessary. Reverend Frank’s weird, inappropriate behavior (such as when he asks Ben “So what do you do, aside from little Sadie, here”) could easily have scored some easy laughs off of religion’s overall cluelessness when it comes to sexuality. Instead, director Ken Kwapis decides to get his religious humor from such moronic things as Reverend Frank dressing his dog up in a clerical collar, and his sleep mask with a crucifix embroidered on it. And the less said about Reverend Frank’s pre-pubescent sidekick the better (really, really a bad idea).
That’s License to Wed, a vast wasteland of stale jokes, stereotypes, and clichés. There is absolutely nothing fresh, original, or even entertaining in this movie. Like the scorched earth of the FOB, this movie is truly God-forsaken.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
