“Bride Wars” Blu-ray Review
Bride Wars. It stars one of Hollywood’s brightest stars (Anne Hatheway) and one of its…well…dimmest (Kate Hudson). Sure, Hudson’s had her hits over the years, but lately she’s just been pairing up with Matthew McConaughey and that hasn’t worked out well (for anyone). You can’t pin the blame on either of the stars individually, however, as this was a collective effort of trash and one that I wish I could immediately forget. Although judging by how thin the plot was, forgetting it won’t be too difficult. Receiving a stunningly low Rotten Tomatoes ranking and boasting one of the lowest IMDb collective average scores I’ve ever seen for a modern film, Bride Wars proved that you could make a real pile of crap even with Oscar nominated actresses on board. And it will also make over $114 million worldwide, much to the chagrin of everyone who ever saw this movie.
Synopsis
Best friends Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Liv (Kate Hudson) have always dreamed of being married at the Plaza Hotel in the month of June. Planning on wedding their respective husbands-to-be, everything seems to be going perfectly – the dates are set, their dresses are beautiful and the maids of honor – each other – are as joyful as can be. However, when the pair of friends receives the bad news that their weddings were planned for the same day, the pre-wedding bliss is ruined. With neither willing to give up her dream wedding, Liv and Emma declare themselves to be engaged in the most heated and dangerous kind of war known to man: The Bride Wars.
I knew going into this film that it was going to be bad. I had seen a trailer for it while seeing Role Models in the theater and knew then and there that this was something I didn’t want to watch. Well dammit, I ended up watching it anyway so that plan was shot to hell. Still, I thought to myself, two attractive women in the leads of a cat fight film had to have some redeeming qualities, right? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. There is nothing about this film that would make anyone wish they had seen it. There just simply is nothing of value here and the dueling bride’s thing has not only been done to death, but it’s also done absurdly poorly here.
Take the…well, entire plot. What amounts to about a twenty-minute story for a sitcom on television is stretched to eight-nine minutes worth of “pranks” and “jokes” being played on the former bestest of friends when their dream wedding days are scheduled for the same date and time. Oh hilarity should ensue, but it doesn’t, because they all just try to one-up and sabotage one another the entire time and if you saw the theatrical trailer for the film, then you honestly saw almost the entirety of the “pranks.” There’s hardly anything that even goes on in this film and still the eighty-nine minutes it runs was too much.
Seriously I just…I get why this film was made and I get how it made as much as it did. It’s a universal concept of women fighting and whatever, but why is it so hard to make these things genuinely good? Do they just not even bother to try? I don’t get how something so horribly boring and un-entertaining could be produced in this day and age, let alone with Hathaway and Hudson at the front of it (those are really the only two people in here you recognize either—there were maybe two or three others and the rest of the cast is made up of people I’ve never seen before or only seem vaguely familiar).
I really wish I could say this was a charming, sweet and funny comedy about friendship, but it isn’t. None of the characters are in the least bit appealing, they act like total jerks the entire time and never once is anything any of them do to each other funny. You made a woman orange, why is that funny? You turned her hair blue…um, haha? No. It’s not funny. This movie isn’t funny and as much as I genuinely enjoy Anne Hathaway’s performances most of the time, this just isn’t a film that looks good for anyone involved.
If you haven’t figured it out by now, Skip this one. You will just curse yourself for spending the time and money on it.
The Blu-ray
Oh Good Lord, Fox not only released this film on Blu-ray with a half-way witty tag line (“Something New. Something Borrowed. Something Blu.”) but they included three copies of the movie in one package. Yes…there are five versions of this film in this Blu-ray case and I don’t think I’ve ever had so many copies of genuine crap in my life. The set arrives in a standard size Elite Blu-ray case with the three discs crammed inside (I actually really love this packaging style for the Blu-ray format, but it is a bit tight inside that case). Inside are some inserts for firmware notices, the digital copy redemption code and a chance to win a 2-carat diamond ring. Menus for the film are simple and easy to navigate and are animated nicely.
Thankfully there is something redeemable about this release: the AVC encoded 1.85:1 1080p video transfer. There are times I forgot about the mediocrity of what I was watching and instead got caught up in the detail of the wedding dresses, the (various colors of) skin and hair and facial textures. It’s a very crisp, clean, and pristine looking picture and I found nothing here (technically speaking) that I took issue with. It is a modernly produced film, after all, so it should look this good—but it’s nice that Fox continues to toss out some of the best looking Blu-ray’s on the market. Also included here is a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track, which aside from some screaming and music from the film, remains in the front channels with little subwoofer bump. Also included are Spanish and French 5.1 tracks as well as Spanish, Portuguese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and English SDH subtitles.
Extras include:
● Something Old, Something New and What That’s Gonna Cost You – Pop-Up Wedding Cost Calculator
● Seven Deleted Scenes Including Alternate Opening (7:05, 1080p)
● Cast Improvisations (2:47, 1080p)
● Fox Movie Channel Presents: In Character with Kate Hudson (2:14, SD)
● Fox Movie Channel Presents: In Character with Anne Hathaway (3:24, SD)
● Featurettes
Meet Me at the Plaza (6:46, 1080p)
The Perfect White Dress – Vera Wang (4:37, 1080p)
Man Den (4:13, 1080p)
Maid of Honor (4:23, 1080p)
Amanda-Cam (4:14, 1080p)
The extras are predominantly fluff, with cutesy little quips from the cast and crew and the like. Only entertaining if you somehow found the film entertaining, although the pop-up calculator was moderately interesting for some reason.
Overall this movie is bad and this release, despite packing three discs, really is pretty poor as well. Lackluster extras with nothing of value in them and…really? Three copies of the movie? I get why it’s there and I commend studios for doing it, but for a movie like this it’s just…really not required. Skip It.
Bride Wars is now available on DVD and Blu-ray.