Bride Hard

Sam (Rebel Wilson) and Betsy (Anna Camp) are childhood friends who've struggled to stay connected as their lives took different paths. Following a Betsy's bachelorette night in Paris that Sam needed to disappear from in order to tackled a weapons deal as she works as a secret agent unbeknownst to her friends, Betsy says she's had enough of Sam's flaking and reassigns Maid-of-Honor to her future sister-in-law, Virginia (Anna Chlumsky). Despite now being on the outs with Betsy, Sam still attends the wedding to show support despite the friction still being there. However the ceremony is interrupted by the arrival of a teal of mercenaries led by Kurt (Stephen Dorff) who is working with the Best Man, Chris (Justin Hartley) to utilize the rings and occular scans of several guests who are required to access a safe on the property. With the wedding party taken hostage, Sam must now use her agency honed training to save her friends and stop the terrorists.

Bride Hard is the latest release of upstart distribution company Magenta Light Studios, the company from prolific producer Bob Yari seeks to specialize in low-mid budget films for theatrical distribution which have struggled in the wake of streaming proliferation that has seen theatrical films lean towards larger more expensive tentpoles. Written by Shaina Steinberg in her feature writing debut, who's most notable credits are as a writing assistant on the Starz series Spartacus and writing for the short lived NBC procedural Chase, Bride Hard is the kind of high concept package (being Bridesmaids by way of Die Hard) that you would've seen more of about 10 years ago with films that came about in the wake of Bridesmaids (think The Heat or Spy). With a cast that includes 3 alums from the Pitch Perfect franchise, Bride Hard feels very much like a man out of time in terms of what it is, it's just a shame it's not reminiscent of one of the good movies of this type and falls more in line with Barely Lethal and So Undercover.

On paper, there's no reason a movie like this shouldn't work because when you intertwine the high stress scenario of an incoming wedding with the high tension scenario of a action movie plot you can get some good mileage out of something like that (the underrated Belgian film The Wedding Party I felt did this kind of premise really well). Unfortunately with Bride Hard, it feels very much like a first draft as the movie doesn't really create characters so much as it creates vaguely defined archetypes that it places in weatherworn situations without particularly good timing or comedic energy. From the opening montage that clunkily sets up Sam and Betsy's estrangement that segues to a bachelorette party where the core cast need text identifiers because the movie couldn't figure out a way to establish their roles and characters organically, the establishment of both the bridal drama/shenanigans and the stock espionage elements aren't particularly well-integrated and the movie fails at creating the comic friction you need for this premise to work. The friendship between Sam and Betsy is supposed to be a key point for the audience to latch onto but there's so little actual meat to that relationship that when Sam is dumped as Maid-of-Honor in favor of Betsy's spiteful future sister-in-law Virginia, there's a feeling of "so what?" because we aren't really invested in the relationship.

Once the high concept action elements enter the movie at the half-hour mark things don't become too much better as despite Simon West's reputation as an action director, the action feels very cheap and without much in the way of memorable setpieces with maybe only an occasional line read mining a smirk or slight chuckle from a wasteland of comedic potential. The editing often feels very clumsy with a lot of choppy attempts at integrating the action elements with the comedic elements and even during standalone sequences, such as where Virginia is being Catty to Sam, there's an odd disjointedness that makes this film feel like it shouldn't be in a theater and would be more at home on VOD.

Bride Hard isn't the worst movie of this type that I've seen (for my money something like 2010's Killers was way worse), but it's also something of a reminder of how a lot of the good will from Bridesmaids was run into the ground by shameless copycats that assumed all you needed for success was a cast of talented female stars, a high concept hook, and no actual effort. There was probably a decent enough idea here at one point, but it either wasn't fully developed or died the death of a thousand cuts leading to something that's destined to take up the back rows of streaming services.

Easily the worst release of the year so far, and I think it's in a prime position to take it all this year as the worst of the worst.

For a movie that steals most of its ideas from Bridesmaids (one of the best comedies of the 00s), it's surprising how unwatchable it is.

My girlfriend and I showed up to the theaters expecting an enjoyable movie and were baffled by the script. The pacing is insane, it yo-yos between rushing through emotional beats of the film and stopping dead minutes later to make a joke that lands with a thump.

The single redeeming element of this film is Da'Vine Joy Randolph. She gets the movie and nails every single shallow joke she has to make. She's the one reason we stayed in the theater.

Boy was this painful to watch. Not funny or good. Rehashed story. Rebel Wilson stunt double was so far off looking like her. Rebel ponytail stunt double no ponytail. Brutal movie. Wait for streaming and save your money from the theater. You would be better off going to see something else. I was amazed that this was even worth a review. Whoever came up with the script was not worthy of a paycheck. I was amazed how few patrons where watching this movie in the theater. I went to the first show on a Saturday afternoon and maybe there were 25 people there and I was being generous at that. Trailer has the funniest parts of the movie.

This is a mindless comedy that isn't exceptionally funny. The acting is poor, the plot is poor, the jokes are contrived and totally expected. There are no surprises in this movie. The editing and continuity was done by an amateurs as I pointed out in Goofs. If you are a Rebel Wilson fan (which I am), you'll probably see the movie and then wish you'd waited for it to stream. Even then, it will prove to be a waste of 1 hour 45 minutes of your life. Rebel Wilson't stunt double was pretty good, but the director had to make these stunt sequences at a distance or with the face away from the camera. Definitely a low budget film with low budget crew.

It's sad what passes as 'comedy' this days.

I've watched it so that YOU, dear reader, don't have to.

It's like Bridesmaids and Die Hard had a baby. But they were both on substance abuse during that time. Action doesn't work, comedy doesn't work, it's chaos in worst possible way.

Some, rare jokes work, but 90% of "humor" is embarrassingly bad, forced and without any chemistry whatsoever. Without spoiling anything, it feels like bad parody of a bad parody at times.

That takes me to chemistry; Rebel Wilson does try to put some heart into it, but again, term that goes through my mind since I watched it - FORCED.

So, does it pass to kill some time? Only if your bar is low and your popcorn's salty.

Re-watch some 90s or early 2000s comedy instead.