‘Shotgun Wedding’ Review: Jennifer Lopez Hits The Altar Again But This Time With Real Fireworks

Pete Hammond
·5 min read
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Jennifer Lopez has been married a few times, both in life and in the movies — most recently twice last year with her real life wedding(s) to Ben Affleck, and on screen in her delightful Valentine’s Day-timed comedy Marry Me. Both made me happy for her, but her latest, Shotgun Wedding, is something altogether different, a frenetic action comedy that never puts on the brakes. It is a wild ride no doubt, but it isn’t the kind of wedding to which I need to be invited any time soon.

So the plot is pretty predictable, especially if you have seen a whole range of movies from Romancing the Stone to last spring’s The Lost City, manic films that pair a male and female star caught in treacherous circumstances and lets them argue and snap at each other for the better part of two hours as they face an onslaught of death-defying antics and stunts. Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum really made the format work big time last year in Lost City and helped bring adult audiences back to the multiplex. Shotgun Wedding was intended to do the same, but somewhere along the way the Lionsgate film was unloaded on to Amazon’s Prime Video and will be largely a streaming attraction rather than the originally set theatrical plan (at least domestically). If it all gets to be a bit much for you, at least it will be a lot easier to just turn off. Actually, this is the kind of mindless popcorn entertainment that would benefit from being seen with a crowd. Comedies like this play better that way, but alas Amazon has other plans.

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So here’s the plot: Lopez plays Darcy Rivera, a lawyer skittishly embarking on a tropical-island wedding with friends and family all coming along for the exotic celebration in the Philippines (the Dominican Republic stood in for the location shoot). She had hoped for something a bit less grandiose, but her intended, Tom Fowler (Josh Duhamel), wanted something much bigger, a cute switch on the usual Bridezilla concept. Almost from the start this wedding is a bad idea with a collection of relatives and friends not exactly meshing, and then out of the blue Darcy’s ex-fiance, the flamboyant and well-liked Sean (a lively Lenny Kravitz), zips in on helicopter, no doubt to try to stop things in their tracks (even though he claims he is full of goodwill towards her and Tom, the latter clearly intimidated by him).

But things really go off the deep end when a group of pirates come ashore, guns a blazin’, and take all the wedding guests hostage. Their goal: to get most of Darcy’s father Robert’s many millions transferred to their bank account — or so it seems. However, both would-be bride and groom are off in the trees somewhere at that moment, bickering about their wedding and not getting along at all — and thus oblivious to the terror being inflicted upon their guests. Soon though, their travels through the jungle turn into a fight for survival, not just with each other and a whole bunch of bad dudes but also with a wobbly plot serving up some hard-to-believe twists and turns.

All this is an excuse for a comedy that does not know the meaning of subtlety or even wants to. It also turns uncomfortably violent at times (it is deservedly R-rated) in an era where terrorism seems to be striking everywhere. Its biggest problem is a complete lack of credibility or sense of reality that might make any of this over-the-top affair remotely plausible. The incredulity of it all won’t matter much to non-discerning viewers, however, who put pace and fun above logic and recognizable human beings.

Lopez, a much much better actress than she is often given credit, tries valiantly — and physically — to make it all fly, even at the point she is virtually forced to turn into a commando in a wedding dress. Clearly though she’s having a blast, and that may be enough for the audience to go right along with her. She is well-paired with Duhamel, who fits the part nicely, a replacement for the original intended co-star Ryan Reynolds (and briefly, scandal-plagued Armie Hammer after that) who retains an executive producer credit. You can easily see Reynolds in the role, but he has done a few too many of these road runner-esque comedies lately so he might be thankful to have dodged the bullet — or bullets — here. Pros like Jennifer Coolidge as Tom’s mother, Sonia Braga as Darcy’s mother, and Cheech Marin as her ex and Darcy’s dad do their best but mostly seem to be just walking through the madness. This is the kind of silly supporting role Coolidge, a welcome comedic presence in just about anything, can now avoid post-White Lotus success. Others include D’Arcy Carden as a none-too-bright Yoga devotee, Callie Hernandez as Darcy’s sister, and Steve Coulter as Tom’s father.

Director Jason Moore, who gave us Pitch Perfect 1 & 2, finds the pitch here is hardly perfect, a tricky tone between the gun-toting action and more human element rarely achieved in Mark Hammer’s uninspired screenplay. But hey, this isn’t about the witty dialogue. Instead it is all about the chase.

Producers are Todd Lieberman, David Hoberman, Alexander Young, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Benny Medina and Lopez. Amazon starts streaming it all January 27.

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