Planner predictable format
by Julia Mims, reporter

    The Wedding Planner is no more than promised—a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey.

    Directed by Adam Shankman, The Wedding Planner does actually attempt to curb the predictability of the romantic comedy genre by throwing the viewers in some different directions, but the old romantic comedy formula is too hard to break from.

    From the beginning, you know that Lopez and McConaughey will end up together.

    This is not the problem. Most romantic comedies are not about who will end up with whom because we know that already; they are about how they get there.

    The Wedding Planner just has too much of how they get there.

    The two main characters cannot decide whom they love and whom they want to marry, which gets somewhat tiresome.

    Why can’t people decide if they actually want to marry a person before they get to the altar? This indecision seems to be the problem of Mary and Steve.

    Lopez plays Mary, a perfectionist wedding planner.

    Planning weddings has been Mary’s dream since she was a child, and now that she is one of the best, her next conquest is to become a partner at her company. All she has to do is land this one big client to have her partnership.

    Throughout the movie Mary has a “those that can’t marry, plan” motto that shows she is a little cynical about the whole love thing until she crosses paths with Steve (McConaughey), a pediatric doctor.

    As she is walking across a street, her high heel gets stuck in a manhole cover just as a cab driver hits a dumpster. As the dumpster is heading straight for her, Mary sets her trapped foot free from the shoe.

    But wait, she must save her brand new Gucci shoe. She starts tugging and really trying to set her shoe free while the dumpster is still aiming for her. Can’t you just feel the tension?

    Have no fear; Steve selflessly rescues her and her shoe, and he becomes the object of her affection, giving her something to smile about until she finds out a minor detail about his close relationship to her newest client.

    Mary then must struggle with the dilemma of being a professional or a saboteur.

    The movie takes too long to get them where they are going, even though the audience knows almost from the beginning.

    Common sense is not a strong point in the movie.

All she has to do is move out of harm’s way, let the dumpster run over her shoe and then go back for it. It was Gucci though.

    Those shoes are expensive. But I guess the movie needed some dramatic hero and damsel in distress scene where they could meet.
    In The Wedding Planner, love or plain stupidity makes everyone do very dumb things that eventually wear on the nerves a little.

    It would have been a better movie had the length been shorter. How long must we viewers suffer to await the predictable ending?

    In spite of these pitfalls, Lopez and McConaughey give spirited performances.

    After seeing this movie, one could really picture Lopez as an uptight wedding planner and McConaughey as a cute, confused man.

    On the high point, The Wedding Planner has many funny scenes, especially one involving a statue.

    If you are just looking for a fun time and not expecting anything profound, you will probably come out of the theater with a smile on your face.