The Wedding Planner premieres: Plan on waiting for the home video
By Jamelah Earle
Editor-in-Chief

The Wedding Planner opened at No. 1 last weekend.

And I’m sorry to say that I helped it get there.

I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to like the movie, but I had to come up with something to review, and it was either that, or Save the Last Dance, so I opted for the new Jennifer Lopez/Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy lighting up screens all over the country.

Well, it’s supposed to be lighting up screens, but this movie generates less electricity than an Amish farmhouse.

The premise is acceptableÑMary Fiori (Jennifer Lopez), a lonely wedding planner, needs to organize the perfect wedding so that she’ll get a partnership with her firm. She comes across the opportunity when she reads about Frances Donnelly’s (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras) wedding.

She lands the deal, but there’s a problem.

Nearly killed by a runaway dumpster on her way to work, Lopez (and her Gucci pump) is saved by a charming young pediatrician named Steve (Matthew McConaughey). They go to the movies. They dance. They have a magic moment, complete with swelling music and flashing lights.

And then they move on with their lives. Mary lets it slip to Wilson-Sampras that she’s fallen for a guy she met, but then she discovers that the guy she met is Frances’s fiancee.

Hilarity ensues.

Or something.

The only cute moments in this Adam Shankman-directed debacle come from the performance of Justin Chambers, who plays Massimo, the crazy Sicilian Mary’s father tries to set her up with.

The problem is that the movie is just too predictable. There’s supposed to be sexual tension between Lopez and McConaughey, but instead they just seem bored. And that stems from the script.

I’ve seen episodes of Friends with more intriguing plot twists.

It’s like screenwriters Pamela Falk and Michael Ellis deliberately tried to steer away from being formulaic, and instead wrote something that was downright stupid.

There are lines in the film like this: “There’s the wedding planner. She must lead such a romantic life.”

I guess that’s supposed to foreshadow the next scene, in which Lopez is at home, fixing a salad, and watching Antiques Roadshow.

And then there’s the scene where Wilson-Sampras and McConaughey sing Olivia Newton-John. I thought about stabbing myself in the eye with the pen I was taking notes with, but I persevered.

I would go on about how I shouldn’t reveal the ending to you, but let’s face it, if you’ve ever seen a romantic comedy, then you’ve seen this movie. And probably a better version of it.

But maybe I’m being too harsh. The 12-year-old boys in the theatre loved it. Especially the extreme number of shots set up, I think, to highlight Jennifer Lopez’s derriere. The boys actually whistled.

In all, it wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t the best, either. But if you’re looking for a predictable romantic comedy to waste your money on, this is the one of the week.