Customer Reviews

27 Dresses (Widescreen Edition)

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

If you're a fan of weddings you'll laugh along to the affectionate pokings and proddings that 27 Dresses takes at the wedding industry. If you hate them, you'll like the potshots it takes. Depending on how you feel about weddings, you'll either see them through Kevin's (James Mardsen) eyes or through Jane's (Katherine Heigl) but both points-of-view are represented equally in this delightful time waster.

"The Wedding Party" is a fairly standard making of featurette that mixes clips from the film, behind-the-scenes footage, and soundbites from the cast and crew. Everyone gushes about each other. It's a light and breezy extra, much like the film itself.

"You'll Never Wear That Again!" takes a look at the hideous bridesmaid dresses from the film. The director told wardrobe to find the ugliest dresses and succeeded. The various themed weddings are also discussed in this engaging and fun extra.

"Jane's World" examines the production design and how they made Rhode Island look like New York City (?!). A lot of research was done on weddings in order to capture the distinct look of each one.

"The Running of the Brides" is an annual tradition that sees women from all over the country camping out at a store where they all try to get the perfect dress to get married in. It's a shopping frenzy as people race around to get a dress or trade with others.

Also included are three deleted scenes. The first one sees Jane trying to get a cab in New York (good luck) and was wisely cut. The best of the bunch sees Jane, her best friend (Judy Greer) and Tess' best friend trying on bridesmaid dresses. The interaction between the three of them is amusing. Finally, there is a scene where Jane and Tess retrieve George's dog from a pound which seems out of place in the film and was also wisely cut.

Katherine Heigl is pretty good in this feel good comedy. She's always been a bridesmaid (27 times would you believe???) and all those dresses are kept in her closet. She's really hoping for another kind of dress (white). She has been in love with her boss, George (Ed Burns) for years but can't get her feelings returned. Along comes her sister and does exactly that. She and George start dating and before long Jane is about to wear dress 28. Will she get George to like her before he walks down the aisle with her sister? It's actually a surprisingly good movie that I really loved. I thought it might be like other cheesy chick flick comedies, but it's a little more. It's well acted and very funny too.
I think this movie could appeal to almost anyone (including guys). Judy Greer is as good as always (she plays Janes friend Casey) and the rest of the cast do well too. It doesn't hurt that Ed Burns is a very good looking guy and acted pretty well in this. It's light popcorn fun, but worth your time watching it. You'll hopefully love it too.

Watching this DVD, 27 Dresses, was a decent way to spend the hour and forty-five minutes with my wife. She picked this one. I thought Katherine Heigl was a charming lead, and that she lived up to her growing reputation as one of the newer leading ladies in Hollywood. She was very good here, and even better in Knocked Up (Unrated Widescreen Edition). The other players were capable, including Marsden who had a nice chemistry with Heigl. The plot was average romantic comedy. There was little new ground here and some pretty predictable moments. That does not make the film bad; rather it served to make it a comfortable movie that was fun to watch due to the actors involved. Three stars.

"27 Dresses" is not the greatest romantic comedy to hit the screen. It's predictable, by-the-book and adds nothing new to the genre. You have the confident-on-the-surface, always reliable, never-loved leading lady, Jane (Katherine Heigl), the annoying and spoiled little sister (Malin Akerman), the protective best friend (Judy Greer), the oblivious love interest (Edward Burns), and the bad seed who turns out to be the good guy (James Marsden). What makes "27 Dresses" better than all of the other films that clutter the romantic comedy genre is the fact that these stereotypical characters are played to perfection by their respective actors and actresses.

Heigl demands your attention whenever she is on the screen. Whether it's her beauty or her acting prowess, you cannot look away when she's in a scene. She makes a perfect team with James Marsden, who I've always personally felt has been underused as an actor. Akerman is the perfect spoiler to all of the fun, and proves that the failure of "The Heartbreak Kid" was more due to the story itself and not her performance in it. Edward Burns is his old reliable self, and even though his is one of the thinnest characters in the film, he's still a joy to watch. My personal favorite of the whole bunch, however, is Judy Greer as Jane's best friend. Her character is perhaps the most stock of the lot, but she pulls it of with flair and fun.

The story, as I've already stated, is run-of-the-mill. It wouldn't surprise me to stumble on clones of this film on WE, Oxygen or even ABC Family. Heigl is always the bridesmaid and never the bride and when her sister moves in on a potential love interest, things start hitting the fan. Toss in a relentless reporter who writes a wedding column, and you have a fun though formulaic film.

"27 Dresses" is a solid four star film. It proves that you can take a standard love story and build it into something special thanks to excellent direction and acting. I highly recommend it to fans of romantic comedies.

This film is actually much more enjoyable then one might think, and it was unfairly bashed by critics.

Katherine Heigl once again shows that she can carry the weight of a leading headliner in a major studio film. It follows the story of a girl who is in love with being in love and the procession of a wedding. It maybe because she lost her mother at a young age, or it maybe because she is in love with her boss, who dependant on her in the work place but not aware of her in matters of the heart.

James Marsden is a skeptical struggling news reporter who is tired of covering the wedding section of a major newspaper chain. He secretly scoffs at the ridiculous measures that women will go to have "the perfect wedding", even though his articles are the stuff that describes marital bliss as being touched by Heaven. He bumps into Katherine Heigls character at a wedding and is amused by her serious undertaking of being the "perfect" bridesmaid. At the same time he become unknowningly smitten with her, he decides to base an article that sheds light on how ridiculous some women become with their desire for "fairy tale love and marriage".

Enter Katherin Heigl's sister who is coming to visit, and is immediately attracted to Hiegl's boss who is too aware of the opulent attractive sister. Hiegl is heartbroken and miffed and the stage is set for the film which touches the heart and tickles the funny bone.

This is a quintessential film for those who love FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL, THE WEDDING PLANNER, RUNAWAY BRIDE, MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING and other romantic comedies.

There are some truly hilarious moments and some tender poignant scenes as well. The viewer finds himself or herself, whatever the case maybe, cheering on Heigl to achieve her heart's desire throughout the obstacles of the film. Hiegl truly shows in this film that she indeed has star power rivaling Reese Witherspoon and Julia Roberts for the romantic comedy genre.

This is not just a chick flick, men should take note as well and will probably enjoy it as well, even though it might be a guilty pleasure for them. Buy this film and add it to your collection.

HERE COMES THE BRIDE AND HERE COMES THE DRESSES AND THE LAUGHTER. ENJOY!!!

Well, judging by my title for this review you may conclude that I love this movie or something; but then you'll glance over at my two-star rating and realize that that cannot be the case, forcing you to conclude that I must be mocking the films title. Yes, I am. I have seen this movie 27 times in the idea that it is so formulistic and so predictable and literally pulls its plot from just about every other `better' romantic comedy out there that you'll swear you've seen this movie many times before.

This film is very `How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days' light; with a good measure of `Hitch', `My Best Friends Wedding', `You've Got Mail' and pretty much any and every Roberts/Ryan/McConaughey movie thrown in for kicks and giggles.

You know, the typical girl loves guy who doesn't notice despite its obviousness. He falls for someone else (in this instance it's her sister) and she has to act happy for them while on the inside she's crying. Then she meets some arrogant jerk who turns out to be this guy she falls in love with only to have him break her heart about five minutes before she realizes he's the man of her dreams and the movie ends on a happy note. I don't feel that saying any of that can really constitute as a spoiler since this is pretty much told to us in the preview.

Okay, so the story revolves around Jane who is so obsessed with weddings and planning them for her friends that she has never really settled down to plan her own; which is mostly due to the fact that her idiot boss George hasn't figured out that she is madly in love with him. He falls for her selfish sister Tess instead and Jane winds up planning her wedding. Then Jane meets Kevin who appears to be a cynical jerk until she realizes that he is respocible for all the beautiful wedding stories she loves to read and collect and that he hides the romantic within himself behind his prickly exterior as a safeguard (duh) so she falls for him and he for her; but love is never that simple.

There are funny scenes here, don't get me wrong; but there are not nearly enough to compensate for its familiarity.

Katherine Heigl is sweet and charming to a degree but she is no Kate Hudson, and she is easily overshadowed by the remainder of the cast. Judy Greer needs some better roles because she is constantly proving to be the best thing in a mediocre film. James Marsden is charming beyond belief and is easily going to make a huge name for himself now that he has shed the Cyclops glasses and hopped into mainstream territory (his one-two-three punch of `Enchanted', `Hairspray' and '27 Dresses' should do nothing but help his career). Malin Akerman is hilarious as Tess, if not a tad predictably self centered; and while Edward Burns is certainly a nice piece of man-candy (I feel so weird using that term but it seems to fit) he is wooden and boring here.

In the end I'd pass on '27 Dresses' because those other 27 movies are far better and more inspired than this one.

I'll admit it. Despite being a somewhat cynical, heterosexual male, I do have a soft spot for romantic comedies. I am certainly willing to shoot down the ones that are absolute crap, such as Kate and Leopold, or Maid in Manhattan, but I also have a very hard time turning You've Got Mail off when it comes on my HBO. So armed with a light, since-Roswell crush on Katharine Heigl and a close lesbian friend who serves as a great fake girlfriend, I found myself at a screening of 27 Dresses, the new romantic comedy from writer Aline Brosh McKenna.

The movie has not been very well reviewed, and I went in with very low expectations. With that in mind I did enjoy it. I have not been very impressed with the slate of RomComs that have been dumped on us in the past few years, with such absolute drivel as Must Love Dogs and A Lot Like Love, but I was able to enjoy 27 Dresses despite a couple of script errors, and the blatant even to me anti-feminist notion that the importance of its protagonist as a person seems entirely wrapped up in whether or not she can find herself a husband. An odd contrast from McKenna's previous film, the adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada, which commented on the struggle of women to hold power without isolating themselves from human connection.

A few things are out of whack in the script; I am willing to overlook the flawed logistics of the opening sequence where Heigl hires a cab to commute her between two simultaneous weddings, as it is an effective way of showing us the lengths she will go to in an effort to give every bride she knows what they need for their weddings. However, one major plot point of the movie is that Marsden, as a writer for the "Commitments" section of a popular newspaper, attends weddings and interviews the bridal parties for his column, yet Heigl, the maid of honor at a wedding he is writing about in the beginning, does not know who he is when they meet. Also, Heigl's character is painted as having basically no social life, being at the beck and call of her boss whom she secretly loves, yet she apparently knows enough people to have been the maid of honor or at least a very involved bridesmaid in 27 weddings so far. Where exactly did she meet all these other women, when it seems her only friend in the world is the perennial best-friend Judy Greer (brilliant, as always, I should add.)

The reason why it does work is the chemistry between Heigl and the male romantic lead James Marsden, who I am rarely a fan of, which is an actual believable romantic connection, unlike the attempted chemistry between original object of Heigl's affection, Edward Burns, and her sister played by the human bobblehead doll Malin Akerman (seriously, what school of acting did she go to that taught her your head must always move whilst talking?) As much as I am a fan of Burns, I really only think he works as a tough Irish cop or taxi driver, and always seems to fall short as someone who is supposed to actually be loveable.

The movie makes use of two way over-done RomCom staples, that being the clothing-montage and the group singing scene, yet somehow they both work and do more than just fill time between banter. I will confess to being something of a sucker for an earned sing-along scene; I will defy any one to try and shake my love of a bus full of 70's musicians singing Tiny Dancer, and indeed I quite enjoyed this movie's rendition of Benny and the Jets. The sing along scene, which takes place in an upstate New York dive-bar, also contains perhaps my favorite extras in any movie ever, so noticeable in how much they are enjoying the singing of Marsden and Heigl that I began to watch them more than the leads.

One thing the movie does that I found myself very impressed by is that in the climax, our protagonist does something that is absolutely wrong of her to do, regardless of how awful her sister is. Typically in a movie such as this, a move in the same part of the script is something done with the best intentions or even more often, as is the case of most Ben Stiller moviesRye Silverman, the result of things happening that make their own efforts fall apart, Heigl's character does something that is nothing short of personal sabotage, and I have to give a bit of applause to McKenna for taking that direction, of making us see our heroine as someone who can actually do something cruel or manipulative and selfish without making us hate her for it.

This was a wonderful escape. I laughed out loud and cried shamelessly. I am still smiling - if you can believe this I actually let the credits run to the end. I watch a lot of movies - almost all that come out and this is the first time I felt the need to write a review. Chick flicks aren't my cup of tea normally, but I'd seen all the other movies at Blockbuster, so I picked this up. Predictable? Yes, but so much fun to watch it play out. I have to go now, I want to watch the deleted scenes... Peace.

The anatomy of a successful film, no matter what the genre is, doesn't change. Good characterization, some exaggeration, conflict, resolution, and of course, a cast that seems believable should all be evident.

In "27 Dresses", they are. Katherine Heigel plays Jane, a perpetual bridesmaid who has been bridesmaid and helpful friend 27 times. Most bridesmaids wear their dresses once, then hide them. So has Jane. Then one by one, reporter Kevin Doyle learns about each of the weddings, and their associated dresses. Enter her sister, Tess who falls in love with the man that Jane has secretly loved for a long time. It's wedding time again, and one more time, she's a helpful bridesmaid with a little revenge on the side.

This is clearly a date movie, a true chick flick. Yet, in the process of watching the film, there are enough `this is not so bad' moments that even the guys who are dragged along can enjoy it. There is humor, there is romance, and there are moments of pure magic. James Marsden (Corny Collins in Hairspray) gives a convincing performance as does Katherine Heigl. Sure, this is not action adventure film, but it is sure to remain a favorite for years to come.

27 dresses up!

Tim Lasiuta

Bottom line is that this is nothing but another feel-good Cinderella movie. It's predictable. It's got stereotypical characters and overused plot points. It's nothing new and exciting. But it's not the worst example of the genre, either. I actually liked the main character - she, at least, wasn't completely mopey and unhappy. She had a good outlook and attitude towards her bridesmaid-ness. The main guys were appropriately eye-candy-ish. The best friend was (of course) spunky and sweet. So, yeah, it was the same as dozens of very similar movies. And if that's what floats your boat, this is a perfect movie to add to your collection.

If you're looking for anything ground-breaking and amazing, this is not it. If you're looking for an 'awwww, how sweet' romance, this will fit the bill. Not highly recommended, but I wouldn't stop a friend from buying it by performing a flying tackle in the middle of the store, either.