Directed by Frank Coraci

Written by Tim Herlihy

Every once in awhile a movie will come along that makes you want to barge into a busy restaurant’s kitchen and ram your hands into the deep fryer until only tiny shards of bone remain from your melted flesh. And that’s not because it’s bad, but rather the potential of the movie was so much that the actual product falls completely flat.

Advertisement

The Wedding Singer is one of those movies that had a great idea, a credible comedic actor (Adam Sandler) to carry the laughs and a cool premise set in the mid ’80s to take us back to a time not entirely forgotten.

Sandler is Robbie, a kind-hearted wedding singer who is happy with his job even if it doesn’t provide the best income for him and his fiancee.

But when the day for Robbie’s own wedding comes, he is left at the altar. An imminent nervous breakdown looms over him as he tries to grasp the idea that his dream of having a house, wife and family has just slipped away from him.

It’s when Robbie falls for the wedding reception waitress Julia (Drew Barrymore) that the movie starts to look a little familiar, mainly because there are no surprises left in the movie.

Julia is engaged to Glenn (Matthew Glave), an unfaithful dolt addicted to Miami Vice and all the perks that his job on Wall Street provide. From the minute Robbie and Julia meet we know the two are going to end up together, and seeing Glenn only makes it more clear.

But in a Three’s Company kind of fashion, there are all those little communication problems that keep the people who are meant to be together apart, so they feel forced to settle for someone else.

Even if this plot seems thick to some people, the movie trailer for The Wedding Singer pretty much gives away the gist of the entire flick. That’s pretty sad when a television teaser can give away a whole movie, right? As far as the plot goes, yes, but the picture does offer some convincing and well done laughs.

Advertisement*

For instance, an alcohol-filled wedding reception starts the movie off with probably the best laughs of the film. Director Frank Coraci paints a vivid and accurate picture with the all-too-familiar wedding reception regulars as well as with the ’80s music, hair and outfits.

You can tell at times that writer Tim Herlihy penned this movie with Sandler in mind not just because he co-wrote Gilmore and Madison but because he leaves it up to Sandler to make the jokes work.

Aside from his music, Sandler’s at his funniest when he loses his cool, and it’s in the hilarious routine at his last wedding job that we get to see both together. It’s scenes like this that allow Sandler to make the movie funny, but when he doesn’t have a decent script to work with is when the chance for a truly funny movie really sinks.