Marry Me
Yeah, I know. Some regular readers to this blog will be spitting out their morning coffee in shock. What on Earth am I doing reviewing a Jennifer Lopez movie? Even more importantly, What am I doing liking it!? Well sometimes over the weekend, the wife gets a hold of the TV. What can you do? Welcome as she threw on one of her ubiquitous rom com… a wedding one no less, And rather than head back to the library for a game of pool, I decided to watch it with her.
One of the first things that caught my eye was some of the talent. Owen Wilson can be really good when hes given the right roles. The trick is to let him lean into the earnest average guy thing he does so well, without letting him tip over into the awe shucks so naive it’s stupid persona that he too frequently find himself in. Sarah Silverman was right there on screen with him as well. Like Wilson, she’s hit or miss for me. I enjoy her when she’s playing somebody who’s a genuinely bad person that you still want to be around. As long as it’s not trying to normalize or justify her behavior, the baby voice saying horrible things schtick actually works well. I’m not nearly as familiar with John Bradley, but hes playing a Nick Frost type, so I’m pretty well drawn in. As long as we ignore the fact that it’s directed by the same person who did She Hu
lk, we’ll be fine.
Jennifer Lopez is about to get married to Bastion… a Latino singer, one of those guys straight out of the early 2000s Ricky Martin mold. But just before she goes on for their wedding concert, she discovers he’s been cheating on her and picks a random person out of the audience to marry insted… that would be Owen Wilson, carrying a sign that his lesbian best friend unloaded on him while she swooned. We get a nice fish out of water story for both Lopez and Wilson, the superstar singer, and the simple math teacher. Lopez is basically playing herself, and we get a lot of music through this film. That’s actually a really good thing… playing into her strengths and actually giving me some new appreciation for her 
talent. The chemistry between Lopez and Wilson builds and there’s plenty of fun moments, Definitely enough charm and laughter to keep the guys who are going to see this with their girlfriends engaged.
At the end of the day, it’s well done, fun and a little bit heartwarming with some genuinely good music. I couldn’t be more surprised at how much I liked it. It’s not the sort of thing that I’m going to run out and get A DVD of…. indeed, I can’t really see us ever watching it again. But for a nice date night movie, you could do worse.
Argo City Comics 