Music superstars Kat Valdez and Bastian are getting married before a global audience of fans. But when Kat learns, seconds before her vows, that Bastian has been unfaithful, she decides to marry Charlie, a stranger in the crowd, instead.
Chuck says:
In a case of unintentional irony, the casting of the rom com “Marry Me” proves a little too spot on and winds up working against. Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson star as a mismatched couple from two radically different worlds. She’s an international pop star and he’s a middle school math teacher who are thrown together in a way only desperate screenwriters can imagine. And while the rules of the genre dictate the two characters must be dissimilar and have extreme differences they must meet in the middle over, the problem here lies with the two leads – you don’t believe they go together for a second. This proves to be an insurmountable hurdle and try as these two veterans might, “Marry” winds up being an exercise in wheel-spinning the likes of which only happen on Chicago’s southside in January.
It’s not a day if Kat Valdez (Lopez) doesn’t post on every social media platform fifty times, has her picture taken so often she’s half blind or uploads a short video to her website. Such is the life of a modern pop star with a global reach in the millions. Charlie Gilbert (Wilson) on the other hand, wouldn’t know Twitter from a fritter, walks around with a flip phone and has an impact that doesn’t reach beyond the middle school where he’s employed.
However, circumstances too complicated to get into finds Gilbert attending Valdez’s NYC concert, where she plans to marry fellow pop sensation Bastian (Maluma) on stage, an event with an estimated international audience of 20,000,000. But, as we know with best laid plans, a fly appears in the ointment in the form of a video of Valdez’s fiancé cheating on her with her assistant, which just happens to drop as she’s about to go on stage. Panic and desperation ensue and it an effort to save face, the singer picks Gilbert out of the audience and declares he will marry him. Equally stunned, he agrees, much to the delight of his daughter (Chloe Coleman) and the dismay of the pop star’s manager (John Bradley).
Now I’ve done some impulsive things in my time- it usually involves me trying a new sandwich I end up not liking – but this takes the cake. Trying to salvage the situation, Gilbert agrees to play along and soon finds himself with his new bride at photo shots and other manufactured moments for the media. Of course, during the course of this they get to know each other, fall in love, get intimate, yada, yada, yada…
Problem is this process is never convincing. When Gilbert repeatedly says that they don’t fit, he’s right and he’s not just referring to the characters. Lopez and Wilson just don’t work together. There’s little in the way of chemistry between them and though each of them does a fine job bringing their characters to life with a sense of sincerity, there’s nothing there between them. Like that indefinable “it” factor that separates movies stars from the rest of us, there’s no tried-and-true formula for creating on-screen chemistry. It either happens or it doesn’t and no amount of forcing it will make that connection occur.
The fact that Lopez, one of the film’s producers, allows herself far too many moments to sing on screen proves a misstep. Her warbling prevents the movie from achieving any sort of momentum, but this could have been overcome if there was a spark at all between the two leads. As it is, “Marry” comes off as a failed vanity project for Lopez and poor Wilson is left holding the bag.
2 1/2 Stars
