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San Francisco Chronicle
22-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Review: Yippee ki‐yay, Rebel Wilson is a one-woman killing machine in ‘Bride Hard'
In a directing career going back almost 30 years, Simon West has never even tried to make a good movie. His filmography is a catalog of intentional mediocrity — 'Con Air,' ' The General's Daughter,' ' Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,' ' The Mechanic.' Yet it takes a certain discipline to stick to what you're sort of good at and never make an audience suffer through your deepest feelings about life and existence. Like his latest effort, 'Bride Hard,' West's movies are never exactly good, but they're almost never boring — and boring is the only unforgivable sin. His latest movie's title, 'Bride Hard,' says it all. It has become a cliche of the Hollywood pitch meeting for would-be filmmakers to describe their proposed projects in terms of two previous box office hits: 'It's like 'Dracula' meets 'The Avengers'!' 'Bride Hard' doesn't try to hide the fact that it's a mashup of ' Bridesmaids ' and ' Die Hard.' So, even though it's a cynical effort, with no aspiration behind it, there's something playful about it too. Everybody's in on the fact that they're doing something silly. Like 'Bridesmaids,' 'Bride Hard' focuses mainly on the maid of honor, Sam (Rebel Wilson), who finds herself in a competition for the approval of her best friend (Anna Camp), who is getting married. Sam keeps falling down on her maid-of-honor duties, and one of the bridesmaids, the wealthy Virginia (Anna Chlumsky), keeps showing her up. But what Sam's friends don't know is that Sam isn't being negligent. She's trying to balance the imperatives of a social life with a career as a world-class secret agent, a one-woman killing machine. The first 20 minutes, which almost amount to a 'Bridesmaids' parody, are a little slow. The bridal party is in Paris, and Sam keeps having to ditch her friends every few minutes to do spy work. But the movie picks up when it moves to an estate in Georgia, where the wedding is to take place. At that point, the 'Die Hard' aspect of the story kicks in. In place of the late Alan Rickman, who played the villain Hans Gruber in the 1988 action flick, we get Stephen Dorff and a team of mercenaries bursting into a wedding ceremony with machine guns. They take everyone hostage, except for — guess who? — Sam, who just happens to be apart from the wedding party at that particular moment. So you have a situation in which a really bad guy is looking for money and probably intends to kill all the hostages. And you have one talented but unarmed person, Sam, who has to figure out how to rescue them. Sometimes even a humble, not-so-good movie can teach us lessons about filmmaking, and this is the lesson of 'Bride Hard.' You know that whole 'Die Hard' formula, in which it's one person, facing long odds, trying to rescue everybody? That formula is indestructible. In the case of 'Bride Hard,' we barely believe in the characters or their relationships. Wilson — the hilarious Fat Amy of the 'Pitch Perfect' franchise — isn't convincing as an action star, and the movie's light tone all but guarantees that nothing truly bad will happen. And yet, when Sam goes on the attack, we're right there with her. Somehow, we end up caring. Wilson is fun, as always, and she's nicely supported by Chlumsky as the passive-aggressive Virginia, and Camp who, as the bride, walks a nice line between sincerity and comic absurdity.
SowetanLIVE
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- SowetanLIVE
Rebel Wilson rebels against being a bridesmaid, Pixar introduces eccentric aliens, and John Wick is back on the big screen
Spotlight this week looks at Rebel Wilson's latest action comedy, a new Pixar release at cinemas and coverage of the local premiere of From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. In the action comedy Bride Hard, world-class secret agent Sam (Wilson) is terrible at her maid of honour duties because she is too busy with her undercover international spy mission demands. Finding herself demoted to bridesmaid status, she gets a chance at redemption when armed mercenaries crash the ceremony, leaving it up to her to come to the rescue. Directed by Simon West (Con Air, The Expendables 2) and co-starring Anna Camp, Da'Vine Joy Randolph and Anna Chlumsky, the film is at cinemas. The Pixar animation Elio centres on space fanatic Elio's life-changing interplanetary adventure, forming new bonds with eccentric aliens while discovering who he is truly meant to be in the world. The hilarious coming of age adventure is directed by a trio of animation gurus — Adrian Molina (Coco, The Good Dinosaur), Madeline Sharafian (Turning Red) and Domee Shi (Inside Out) — and features voice cast Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldaña and more. On at cinemas and 3D. Don't miss coverage of the local premiere of From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, a sneak peek at the next chapter of the much-anticipated popular franchise Now You See Me: Now You Don't in November, and a dystopian Stephen King-penned horror The Long Walk at cinemas in September.
TimesLIVE
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- TimesLIVE
Rebel Wilson rebels against being a bridesmaid, Pixar introduces eccentric aliens, and John Wick is back on the big screen
Spotlight is our bite-sized entertainment snapshot featuring new releases in South Africa, exclusive film trailers and more. New episodes come out every Thursday on Sunday Times Lifestyle, Sowetan Entertainment and YouTube, plus you can follow Spotlight on Facebook. Spotlight this week looks at Rebel Wilson's latest action comedy, a new Pixar release at cinemas and coverage of the local premiere of From the World of John Wick: Ballerina. In the action comedy Bride Hard, world-class secret agent Sam (Wilson) is terrible at her maid of honour duties because she is too busy with her undercover international spy mission demands. Finding herself demoted to bridesmaid status, she gets a chance at redemption when armed mercenaries crash the ceremony, leaving it up to her to come to the rescue. Directed by Simon West (Con Air, The Expendables 2) and co-starring Anna Camp, Da'Vine Joy Randolph and Anna Chlumsky, the film is at cinemas. The Pixar animation Elio centres on space fanatic Elio's life-changing interplanetary adventure, forming new bonds with eccentric aliens while discovering who he is truly meant to be in the world. The hilarious coming of age adventure is directed by a trio of animation gurus — Adrian Molina (Coco, The Good Dinosaur), Madeline Sharafian (Turning Red) and Domee Shi (Inside Out) — and features voice cast Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldaña and more. On at cinemas and 3D. Don't miss coverage of the local premiere of From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, a sneak peek at the next chapter of the much-anticipated popular franchise Now You See Me: Now You Don't in November, and a dystopian Stephen King-penned horror The Long Walk at cinemas in September. Competition and giveaways Win a Bride Hard movie merchandise hamper by answering a question. For full competition details and the questions, go to the Spotlight SA Facebook page and DM your answers and contact details by June 25. Terms and conditions apply. Winners will be drawn randomly and notified by SMS after the competition has closed. Entrants' personal details will not be retained for marketing purposes. Winners have to provide proof of age (ID/driving licence) and cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. By entering, participants agree to have their names published on TimesLIVE, SowetanLIVE and Spotlight SA on Facebook. Employees of Arena Holdings and their family members are not eligible to enter.
San Francisco Chronicle
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Movie Review: Rebel Wilson's 'Bride Hard' is a wedding movie that's easy to break up with
Take your average wedding flick, shotgun a hostage situation into it and add some anarchic energy from Rebel Wilson and you get 'Bride Hard,' which is a movie, for better or for worse. In this case, much, much worse. 'Bride Hard' — which combines thrusting male strippers dressed as Vikings as well as deadly automatic weapon fire — isn't funny or thrilling. It has the kind of lazy pacing you'd usually find on the Hallmark Channel and a level of acting not much better than porn. Director Simon West, whose action movie credits include 'Con Air' and 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,' seems to be making a parody until he's not. The whole thing stinks of an '80s low-budget movie that you might find, back in the day, rummaging through a discount bin at Blockbuster. Wilson stars as Sam, a secret government 'Mission Impossible'-type agent who is a loose cannon, lethal with an elbow and as creative as MacGyver, but poor at managing her personal life. 'I will give you all of your flowers on the job, but in your real life, you're kind of dumb,' says her agent friend, played by Sherry Cola, who like everyone here, has been shorn of saying anything amusing. Even the blooper reel at the end of the movie is underwhelming. We start when Sam is reunited with her childhood best friend, bride-to-be Betsy — Wilson's 'Pitch Perfect' co-star Anna Camp — for a bachelorette party in Paris, which goes disastrously bad since Sam is also hunting for a bioweapon at the time. The action then shifts to a mansion on a private island in Savannah, Georgia, the site of a lavish wedding and lots of daytime drinking. That is, until heavily armed goons arrive to steal a pallet of gold bars. (Gold bars, like it's a Looney Tunes cartoon.) It's up to Sam to save the day and prove she's a good friend. Screenwriters Cece Pleasants and Shaina Steinberg seem to be mocking spy thrillers and wedding movies alike until they also kind of stop. There's lots of real blood, fiery explosions, impalings and electrocutions, along with irritable bowel syndrome jokes and plenty of kicks to the groin. Sample dialogue: 'Oh, Sam, you're alone,' the mother of the bride says as she approaches Sam. 'Well, no. I have my emotional support boobs,' Sam responds. There's also needless scene-explaining, like one bad guy yelling, 'She's using the chocolate fountains as cover!' Yeah, we see that. Have the screenwriters been reading the room? Not clear. 'If anybody ever mentions that I'm a secret agent, we will rendition you to one of our many unnamed bases,' warns Sam, as her spy colleague does a throat-slitting gesture. Rendition jokes are really so funny this summer. To be fair, there are some intriguing wedding-themed assaults, like the use of hairspray in the eyes, curling iron burns and a bad guy's chest punctured on an hors d'oeuvres platter. Sam likes to wield champagne bottles as clubs. One of the most cringe moments is when a stressed-out pregnant bridesmaid requests another sing the nasty, freaky 'My Neck, My Back (Lick It)' to her unborn baby, which triggers a sing-a-long with all the captives, mostly white, rich and middle aged. But even here it's neutered: The moviemakers go with the radio edit. The movie co-stars Stephen Dorff as the main bad guy, Justin Hartley as eye candy with a secret, Anna Chlumsky as a high-strung maid of honor and Da'Vine Joy Randolph as an edgy, sassy bridesmaid. They all need to break up with their agents. (So does whoever did the stunts — the body doubles are embarrassing.) 'Bride Hard' hits an insane low in a battle sequence in which the bridesmaids — all in fluffy red gowns — use Revolutionary-era cannons to take on trained mercenaries in tactical gear with rocket-propelled grenades. That, of course, leads to plenty of jokes about 'ramming it in.' If you do decide to pony up real cash to see this historic misfire in the movie theaters instead of waiting until you can hate-watch it for free on a streaming service, we have a word of advice: Bring your emotional support boobs. 'Bride Hard,' a Magenta Light Studios release in theaters Friday, is rated R for 'sexual references and some violence.' Running time: 105 minutes. Zero stars out of four.
Winnipeg Free Press
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Movie Review: Rebel Wilson's ‘Bride Hard' is a wedding movie that's easy to break up with
Take your average wedding flick, shotgun a hostage situation into it and add some anarchic energy from Rebel Wilson and you get 'Bride Hard,' which is a movie, for better or for worse. In this case, much, much worse. 'Bride Hard' — which combines thrusting male strippers dressed as Vikings as well as deadly automatic weapon fire — isn't funny or thrilling. It has the kind of lazy pacing you'd usually find on the Hallmark Channel and a level of acting not much better than porn. Director Simon West, whose action movie credits include 'Con Air' and 'Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,' seems to be making a parody until he's not. The whole thing stinks of an '80s low-budget movie that you might find, back in the day, rummaging through a discount bin at Blockbuster. Wilson stars as Sam, a secret government 'Mission Impossible'-type agent who is a loose cannon, lethal with an elbow and as creative as MacGyver, but poor at managing her personal life. 'I will give you all of your flowers on the job, but in your real life, you're kind of dumb,' says her agent friend, played by Sherry Cola, who like everyone here, has been shorn of saying anything amusing. Even the blooper reel at the end of the movie is underwhelming. We start when Sam is reunited with her childhood best friend, bride-to-be Betsy — Wilson's 'Pitch Perfect' co-star Anna Camp — for a bachelorette party in Paris, which goes disastrously bad since Sam is also hunting for a bioweapon at the time. The action then shifts to a mansion on a private island in Savannah, Georgia, the site of a lavish wedding and lots of daytime drinking. That is, until heavily armed goons arrive to steal a pallet of gold bars. (Gold bars, like it's a Looney Tunes cartoon.) It's up to Sam to save the day and prove she's a good friend. Screenwriters Cece Pleasants and Shaina Steinberg seem to be mocking spy thrillers and wedding movies alike until they also kind of stop. There's lots of real blood, fiery explosions, impalings and electrocutions, along with irritable bowel syndrome jokes and plenty of kicks to the groin. Sample dialogue: 'Oh, Sam, you're alone,' the mother of the bride says as she approaches Sam. 'Well, no. I have my emotional support boobs,' Sam responds. There's also needless scene-explaining, like one bad guy yelling, 'She's using the chocolate fountains as cover!' Yeah, we see that. Have the screenwriters been reading the room? Not clear. 'If anybody ever mentions that I'm a secret agent, we will rendition you to one of our many unnamed bases,' warns Sam, as her spy colleague does a throat-slitting gesture. Rendition jokes are really so funny this summer. To be fair, there are some intriguing wedding-themed assaults, like the use of hairspray in the eyes, curling iron burns and a bad guy's chest punctured on an hors d'oeuvres platter. Sam likes to wield champagne bottles as clubs. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. One of the most cringe moments is when a stressed-out pregnant bridesmaid requests another sing the nasty, freaky 'My Neck, My Back (Lick It)' to her unborn baby, which triggers a sing-a-long with all the captives, mostly white, rich and middle aged. But even here it's neutered: The moviemakers go with the radio edit. The movie co-stars Stephen Dorff as the main bad guy, Justin Hartley as eye candy with a secret, Anna Chlumsky as a high-strung maid of honor and Da'Vine Joy Randolph as an edgy, sassy bridesmaid. They all need to break up with their agents. (So does whoever did the stunts — the body doubles are embarrassing.) 'Bride Hard' hits an insane low in a battle sequence in which the bridesmaids — all in fluffy red gowns — use Revolutionary-era cannons to take on trained mercenaries in tactical gear with rocket-propelled grenades. That, of course, leads to plenty of jokes about 'ramming it in.' If you do decide to pony up real cash to see this historic misfire in the movie theaters instead of waiting until you can hate-watch it for free on a streaming service, we have a word of advice: Bring your emotional support boobs. 'Bride Hard,' a Magenta Light Studios release in theaters Friday, is rated R for 'sexual references and some violence.' Running time: 105 minutes. Zero stars out of four.
