O Casamento do Ano

This film is about the eventful wedding of a young man, when his devout Catholic biological mother turns up for the wedding.

"The Big Wedding" sounds interesting, and might even have the potential to be another "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". With the super stellar cast, I thought it could not go wrong. But it did. The characters are so poorly developed, that they appear so empty. Each of them occupy only a small amount of screen time to make viewers care about them. they are just empty vessels for hollow and unfunny jokes, and each time the jokes fall flat. The wedding may be eventful, but not theatrical or entertaining. It it's such a pity that it turned out to be a bore despite the super cast.

I won't talk much about the plot ( which there was one) but what I will say is first the performances. Deniro was hysterical I can't remember the last ti.e I laughed so hard.

Before watching this movie I wasn't expecting much based on the reviews. I have come to the conclusion that critics have greasy palms and if there forgot About then your movie will be trashed. Its sad just a fact of life.

So the bottom line is this is not a waste of 90 minutes. Cool story, great acting and keeps your I interest the entire time. Ignore the critics on this one someone forgot to pay them.

I do not understand the rating of 5.4 (at the time of writing) nor the very poor review of one of the contributors. My partner and I saw this film last night and found it one of the funniest films in years. And, judging by the laughter, most of the audience agree. Bear in mind that for a majority of the audience English is not their first language either.

A word of caution for prudes. There are three scenes of a highly sexual nature that are extremely funny for those who are not.

This is another in the growing trend of using mature actors and it is good to see Diane Keaton and Susan Sarendon in starring roles where some years back they would have disappeared from our screens. Robert De Niro is excellent, as ever and Robin Williams in the smaller part of the quartet of Oscar winners, made this a foursome of very funny performances.

The rest of the cast also turned in fine performances and I think they must have had lots of fun making the film. We go to the cinema for one reason only - to be entertained. I heard no complaints from the rest of the audience as we left. No Oscar winners here but high marks for fun.

The scenery is also quite magnificent.

'Valentines Day,' 'New Year's Eve,' 'Love Actually,' etc. etc., all movies with 'stellar' casts that were barely watchable. Well, this one tops even those. Absolutely horrendous script that had my wife chuckling a few times but me wondering when this tripe would end. I can't imagine how embarrassed the performers would be if they were forced to sit and watch it. I honestly don't know how movies like this get made, especially with such casts. The only thing I can think of is that it gives the actors a quick payday without having to work very hard, so who can blame them really. I'm glad we went to the cheap matinée.

In short, the jokes are all sex-related and not funny, many of the lines seem to have been bad ad-libs, one character speaks in subtitles in a poor attempt to add sophistication to the movie (and she's very annoying at that), and you couldn't care less what happens to any of the characters. Oh, and it has Amanda Seyfried and Kathryn Heigle, who's tracks to stardom are proof that God exists.

If you're reading this after the fact, I feel your pain.

The Big Wedding (2013)

** (out of 4)

An all-star cast does what they can for this romantic comedy but sadly it's not nearly enough. Robert DeNiro and Diane Keaton play a former married couple who finds their adopted son about to be married. The only problem is that his real mother is very strict and wouldn't approve of his in-laws not being married so the two plan to pretend that they're still married, which causes trouble with the father's girlfriend (Susan Sarandon). THE BIG WEDDING features not only those three Oscar-winners but we've also got Robin Williams playing a priest and the supporting cast includes the likes of Katherine Heigl, Amanda Seyfried and Topher Grace. With that cast it seems like we'd have something special here but that's not the case because the screenplay is just too silly, tame and boring for it to work. I love the cast and they helped keep me interested in the movie but they simply don't have anything to work with, which then begs the question as to why they agreed to be in it. The problem is that the screenplay gives us so many "stories" going on and none of them are all that interesting. You have love triangles, pregnancy issues, virgin issues, speaking issues and countless other family issues and none of them are funny. You have jokes aimed at Catholics and various sex jokes but these to are unfunny. The film tries to be somewhat raunchy but even these jokes are just too tame to work and especially in this current state of raunchy comedies. There are a few funny moments throughout and it's usually the cast member's charm that is making it. The cast members do what they can but no one here is delivering Oscar-worthy performances. Seeing DeNiro, Keaton and Sarandon acting together is fun but one really wishes the material had been better. Heigl adds nothing to the film and even Seyfried and Grace are pretty much given nothing to do but stand in the background. THE BIG WEDDING has a big cast but very little else. At best this is for fans of the cast members but even them will just want to save this for a very cheap ticket or a free rental.