In the most matrimonial colors – Newspaper Kommersant No. 31 (7476) dated 20.02.2023

At the box office is Jason Moore’s My Pirate Wedding, which mixes romantic comedy with action in an exotic location. The result of this experiment, according to Julia Shagelman, it does not always turn out to be coherent, but at its best moments it is quite funny.

The turn of the career of actress and singer Jennifer Lopez towards the comedy genre happened at the very beginning of the 2000s. Her first experience in this field was the rom-com “Wedding Planner” (2001), which was mercilessly scolded by critics, but collected a decent box office. Among the comedies with Lopez, there were better films, for example, “Maidmaid” (2002), and much worse, like “If the mother-in-law is a monster …” (2005); until recently, her last appearance in the light genre took place more than a decade ago, after which she focused on music, from time to time starring in action films of a very average order. However, in 2018, Lopez returned to the comedy with the symbolic name “Start Over”, and last year she successfully performed in the rom-com “First Counter”. Like her early films, these films cannot be classified as events, but you can pass one and a half to two hours watching them.

In My Pirate Wedding, Lopez also acts as the central star. Ryan Reynolds, who remained in the film as an executive producer, was planned for the role of her partner, then Armie Hammer, who was removed due to dubious escapades in real life, and finally, Josh Duhamel took the place on the poster and on the screen next to Jennifer, proving that by and large it does not matter at all who will be attached to it there. However, his own charm is enough to still not get lost and make a harmonious pair with Lopez.

We meet Darcy (Lopez) and Tom (Duhamel) the evening before their wedding on a Philippine island lost in the ocean (its remoteness from the mainland will still play its role in the plot). The authors immediately want to emphasize that they do not have the most standard rom-com here, having arranged a gender shifter. Of the two lovers, it is Tom who dreams of the perfect wedding, which he spent a whole year preparing, ordering custom-designed napkins and gluing garlands of light bulbs to pineapples with his own hands. And Darcy would have been glad to just sign at the city hall, but she gave in to the groom, and now she is trying to survive the festive events with the help of cocktails.

Alcohol also helps when she has to communicate with her mother (Sonia Braga), who has not forgiven her millionaire dad (Chich Marin), leaving for a young mistress (D’Arcy Carden), who loves to talk about astrology and positive energies, and with her dad himself, who considers her the groom is a loser (he has certain reasons for this: at his not at all young age, Tom is a baseball player in the lowest league, and he was even kicked out of there). And also future relatives, especially the groom’s mother, who has a unique ability to always appear at the wrong time and blurt something out of place, which Jennifer Coolidge, who plays her, carries through all her roles. Further complicating the situation is Darcy’s ex-boyfriend Sean, who looks like a rock star (played by his real rock star Lenny Kravitz) and plunges poor Tom even deeper into the abyss of complexes and self-doubt, who appeared uninvited.

However, the main theme and source of funny situations in the film will not only be complex family relationships. The next morning, new uninvited guests appear at the wedding: pirates who take the whole company hostage and demand a $45 million ransom from Darcy’s father. and eliminating pirates with the help of hairspray, grenades and kitchen utensils, and at the same time learning to negotiate and trust each other, which, as it turns out, they did not have time to do before the wedding.

Perhaps both Lopez and Duhamel are too mature for characters who have not yet decided on their place in life and relationships. But they make it fun to run along the beach in rapid speed, and they give the audience hope that even if you are a little (for a couple of decades) over thirty, you still have a chance to meet a kindred spirit, who, moreover, will be able to at the right time use a machine gun or an old family cake knife for its intended purpose.