the Mind’s Chew Toy

Synopsis

Newly engaged Ben Murphy (Krasinski) has a problem: his fiancée, Sadie Jones (Moore), has always dreamed of getting married in a traditional wedding at her family church. Unfortunately, St. Augustine’s only has one wedding slot available in the next two years, and its charismatic pastor, Reverend Frank (Williams), won’t bless Ben and Sadie’s union until they pass his patented, foolproof marriage-prep course.

Our Thoughts

It seems Robin Williams films fall into two distinct categories: films that provide simple laughs…and other. While the “other” category is full of thoroughly satisfying movie experiences (Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead Poet’s Society, etc.), the “simple laugh” films are less satisfying and all filler.

These “simple laugh” films rely on creating bizarre situations that are virtually guaranteed to promote laughs, rather than any sort of intelligent plot. They’re usually extremely simple films that don’t require much of the viewer’s brain power - sort of the film version of a sitcom. Mrs. Doubtfire falls squarely into this category…and so does License To Wed.

While Heather tends to like these films a bit more than I do, she will probably join me in staying away from this one (at least for now), as our planning for our own upcoming wedding (07/07/07) leaves us with little desire to watch any sort of wedding-themed film at the moment.

She’ll probably rent License To Wed when it hits DVD, however…and I’ll probably stick around just to see Robin Williams be funny - but I doubt I’ll stay for the whole show.