After a variety of sequels that have outpaced their predecessors in recent months, its been a bit of a wait and see as to how long it would be before we go back to the 'sequels generally suck' formula - well it seems we have. In a Summer desperate for some comedy, 'Wedding' sadly fails to fill the void and despite some good laugh sequences, overall is a big letdown compared to its predecessors.
I must admit I was never a huge fan of this franchise - the first film had some good laughs and sweet moments but overdid it in the
sentimentality factor, the second film felt more studio-style setup with a reliance on skits rather than a cohesive script but the laughs were funnier and far more elaborate whilst certain characters like Stifler were handled just perfectly. The third feels even more 'studio setup' as having cut out a lot of supporting characters, and whittling the runtime down to 93 minutes, there's practically no time for anything other than a series of gags - none of which come close to the continuous laughs or cleverness of say the lesbians sequence in the second film.
The cause, like T3, is probably the change of director. The Weitz Bros. handled the first one perfectly, James B. Rogers helmed the second with a wealth of experience under his arm, but this time they've got Jesse Dylan handling it - a man whose sole credit before this was Method Man comedy "How High". The result is a film which gets its comedy and gross out segments working fine thanks to some elaborate setups, but blindly stumbles in the areas in between the gags.
Herz's script feels very phoned in, the comedy sequences obviously trying to emulate many of the previous film gags including the movie's best sequence involving two strippers & a dinner party. Almost unforgivable though is that in order to setup the increasingly ridiculous scenarios, Herz compromises in many ways on these characters as several of them undergo major changes from the previous movies in their tone and nature.
Most notable is Stifler. Seann William Scott is the find of this series, a great young comic actor whose got seemingly unlimited potential and yet this is the first of his comic turns I've been disappointed with. The character is one that requires a delicate balance between obnoxious ass and innocent stupidity. The second film got the mix perfect, making him the butt of many of the film's best jokes and yet not going overboard.
Here, especially in the first half hour, the character seems to have become even far more stupider
and arrogant, lacking any appeal as he simply swears and acts like a ten-year-old brat rather than the twenty-something dumb jock
he once was. As it goes on he gets better, Dylan seems to eventually get the hang of the character but its too little too late.
Worse yet there's stumbling in regards to the characters not returning - Oz is never mentioned, Tara Reid's character
comes up in a brief throwaway line, and none of the other girls other than Nadia really rate a mention.
Similarly other characters are somewhat off-center - Hannigan does her usual solid work but her role has become quite different than last time, whilst poor old Thomas Ian Nicholas is stuck purely as background scenery and maybe two lines of dialogue in the film. Its left up to Thomas (Finch) and Levy (Jim's Dad) for many of the laughs and they handle it superbly as usual, Levy especially who reteams with his regular Christopher Guest-film pals like Jennifer Coolidge (Stifler's Mom) and Fred Willard (Michelle's Dad) who all provide welcome support. Jason Biggs does his usual turn though I must admit I liked him more this time around. January Jones amply handles Cadence, a nice little love interest role for Stifler whilst Eric Allan Kramer delivers some superb laughs as 'The Bear' (aka. Belvedere) whose involved in the film's two best comedy setups.
Production values, music, etc. are all handled superbly as expected for a comedy of this size, and the score is nice and jumpy with a few harkenings back to older classics. Make no mistake, the average audience will find plenty of good laughs in this - from a gay club dance-off to 80's music, through to jokes involving a wedding ring and a pissed off granny, the gags come flying fast and whilst they're not raucously funny they get the job done. What's missing though is everything else.
The first 'Pie' still stands above the crowd not just for its extreme gags but also due to its quite effective emotional heart. The second one may have been less emotional but it still had some story and handled it well. Here there's many obvious gaps - characters appear and disappear with little to no explanation, some sequences feel like they're missing key background information, at others you can almost see the visible cutting (Nicholas especially looks set to blurt out a monologue a few times but never gets to start one). Its surprisingly shoddy amateur filmmaking and ruins what could otherwise have been a solid cap off to what up till this point has been a very funny comedy series.
