License to Wed (2007) – DVD
ZERO STARS/**** Image B Sound B+ Extras F
starring Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, John Krasinski, Christine Taylor
screenplay by Kim Barker and Tim Rasmussen & Vince De Meglio
directed by Ken Kwapis
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover License to Wed is one more piece of roadkill on the path to Hell that Hollywood has mistaken for normalcy. The idea of a wildly intrusive minister manipulating the lives of two aspiring marrieds is bad enough, but what's worse is that one of the lovebirds in question is a suspicious jerk who doesn't use his brain while the other is an airhead who turns on her man with the slightest suggestion from a totalitarian cleric. Watching these people do their stuff isn't just unfunny, it's downright creepy–a freakshow of gruesome embarrassments and gender politics that will have you covering your eyes at regular intervals. The filmmakers think that hateful attitudes and grotesquely inappropriate behaviour are somehow going to be smoothed over by feigning good intentions and a boring, brightly-lit aesthetic that squeezes anything eccentric out of the frame. Although License to Wed comes across like your favourite boring uncle, rest assured there's something under its raincoat you don't want to know about.