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| Directed by Garry Marshall; Starring Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Joan Cusack, Hector Elizondo, Rita Wilson, Paul Dooley, Christopher Meloni, Jane Morris, and Laurie Metcalf |
Just when you think it the film world is safe from a Gerry Marshall film, he strikes again. It is usually two or three years in between his films, so when the dreadful The Other Sister came out, everything seemed safe for at least two years. Nope, instead he sticks us with a second film in 6 months. I do not believe the film community can handle that. His crowd pleasing comedy that is terribly unfunny would even make Tom Shadyac frown and we’re stuck with a second one so soon. The only thing I can really say is that at least Runaway Bride is better than The Other Sister.
Runaway Bride is less a movie and more a formulaic publicity stunt to reunite the stars of Pretty Woman with the director. Both actors, Gere especially, seem to be just as disturbed as I am that this is how low their careers have sunk. It’s like watching a Patty Duke Show reunion on daytime TV and noticing just how little these actors have been able to do since. They are listless and are not near as interesting or interested as when Pretty Woman came out.
Here Roberts plays a Maggie Carpenter who has dumped men at the altar 3 times and is set for her fourth victim. It’s not that she is doing it for fun, the reputation is maddening to her. It’s just that at the last moment she always sees that this could be a big mistake and runs off. Then a USA Today writer Ike Graham (Gere) writes a less than enchanting article about her in his anti-women column. This so infuriates the rural Maggie that she sends a letter pointing out mistakes in the column (he accuses her of ending seven weddings) to the editor of USA Today causing the editor (Wilson), who also happens to be Ike’s ex-wife, to fire him. This so infuriates Ike that he makes a spec deal with the paper to get a first hand look at Maggie from her small Maryland town. There he finds a world very different from New York (the many Andy Griffith Show jokes are very tired and boring) and meets characters that seem like a carbon copy from millions of different romantic comedies. As one can guess the two fall in love, which can mean only one thing: now she has to ruin another wedding.
I only can remember laughing twice at this film, neither time at the grandmother (unfunny, unfunny, unfunny). The film is boring and predictable, only letting up a couple of times in which the film seems to have an original idea. I liked the chemistry between the stars, both working despite not really wanting to work. Another thing I liked was Meloni as the man betrothed to Maggie, his jock was endearing and a likable performance (despite a lack of likable dialogue). I think that the film is a poor film, without a doubt, but when you look at most of Garry Marshall’s films, things do not seem quite as bad.
