 Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal is one of several critics who conclude that there are a lot of misfires in Wedding Crashers. Nevertheless, he concludes, "There's a lot here to laugh at and to enjoy." He particularly cites one line of dialogue, delivered by an angry wife during a divorce mediation: "You shut your mouth when you're talking to me!" Comments Morgenstern: "This tidbit of skewed logic is only one bright moment of many in a film ... that is blessed with a surfeit of sharply-honed zingers, and a flow of language that's both raunchy and uncommonly rich." Chris Kaltenbach in the Baltimore Sun agrees, saying that the first two thirds of the movie is "very funny, a classic guilty pleasure that revels in its basest elements. If only it didn't get all mushy and profound in the third act, this movie could have been a classic, period." And Chris Vognar in the Dallas Morning News also remarks, "It would help if the story didn't run off to the punch bowl with about 30 minutes left, but this case of cold feet can be forgiven." Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times concedes that the film is "far from bullet proof." However, she writes, "Witty, unhinged and fearless, it's exactly the kind of movie we need now; if only to give James Dobson something to get exercised about after a long day of focusing on the family." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post compares the ending with "that deflating moment in the classical Don Rickles canon when, after tearing the world collectively a new nether passage, he'd turn to Johnny and say, "But you know, we're really all brothers under the skin blah blah blah blah." Ugh." Nevertheless, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are given high marks for their portrayals of two men who crash wedding parties looking for dates. "Vaughn's overbearing slacker-wiseguy and Wilson's blissed-out surfer dude blend into the ultimate patty-melt of slob-comedy personas," writes Gene Seymour in Newsday. And Kyle Smith concludes in the New York Post: "Vaughn and Wilson do cool insincerity as well as anyone since Chevy Chase and Bill Murray chased skirt. Hollywood should keep pairing them until we get sick of them." |
