The Big Wedding 2013

Stephen Holden, New York Times: The screenplay is chopped up into smutty sound bites constructed around the notion that casual obscenity delivered by respected actors of a certain age is hilarious. But it's just embarrassing. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: It might take a glass of champagne or two to get through The Big Wedding. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: It's a mess, and not in a good way. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: The film isn't so much funny as it is merely amusing - a laundry list of inappropriate and potentially embarrassing moments that strive mightily, but never quite manage to land the laugh. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: It's almost impressive how the moronic new ensemble comedy The Big Wedding manages to cram three hours' worth of nonsensical subplots, extraneous characters, and implausible plot points into 90 minutes of streamlined idiocy. Read more

Tom Russo, Boston Globe: An ensemble comedy with a tonal cluelessness as surprising as the name cast that signed on for it anyway. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: Barring a few off-color jokes, though, the movie feels like a Carol Burnett sketch dragged out to feature length. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: This is an American movie trying, strenuously, to "swing" a little. The slapstick is broad and generally awkward. Read more

Adam Graham, Detroit News: It never feels real, and its only saving grace is that it clocks in at a mercifully short 90 minutes, which is just about the amount of time you need to realize you never want to see these characters ever again. Read more

Laremy Legel, Film.com: A film without any true concept of what it's trying to accomplish. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: A game cast and lots of gamey R-rated shenanigans can't compensate for the silly comic contrivances that dominate The Big Wedding. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: Like many big weddings - a lot of things go wrong and not much goes right. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The Big Wedding is a would-be screwball comedy that forgets to throw in the screws. Read more

Frank Lovece, Newsday: This movie plays like an episode of "Gilligan's Island" done as straight as an episode of "Lost." Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: I suppose it's always nice to get an invitation but please, this "Wedding"? Send back your regrets. Read more

Keith Phipps, NPR: The quiet moments feel just as contrived as the manic flailing that repeatedly sends characters tumbling into swimming pools and other bodies of water. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Movie-family weddings are like real ones. Some faces are welcome, some you dread and others have had work done. But they all get tiresome quickly. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: "I'd rather gouge my eyes out with hot spoons!'' De Niro exclaims at one point. I'm not sure exactly what he was talking about, but I'd like to think it referred to the prospect of being forced to watch "The Big Wedding.'' Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: In order to pull off this sort of business, the pace should be breakneck, there shouldn't be an extra second to contemplate the moral lapses and betrayals. Alas, The Big Wedding, which inches along like a stoned snail, gives us all the time in the world. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It's tired and dated with too few laughs to justify the stultifying attempts at drama and the impossible-to-swallow plot contortions. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Looks great, some terrific ingredients, but when you slice it up, what a disappointment. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie is bland hackwork; its crime isn't incompetence, but indifference. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: There is only one thing to do when you set up a comic machine that doesn't fire -- and that's to go sentimental. But if everybody is behaving like a stock comic type, that's not going to work, either. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "The Big Wedding" doesn't have a single moment of recognizable humanity. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: A shining example of a dull studio comedy. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: The Big Wedding aims low and achieves every aspiration. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Sarandon, Keaton and De Niro mesh beautifully, fully convincing as a trio of old friends and carting in lots of characterization that would be otherwise lacking in Zackham's rote screenplay. Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: It's not the sheer predictability of the ensuing frolics that's hardest to take, or even the dismal attempts at humour ... but the sheer misery of watching actors you once respected demean themselves in such utterly worthless fodder. Read more

Calum Marsh, Village Voice: Many Hollywood films are founded on privilege, but few are as open and nasty about their racism, misogyny, and homophobia. It's a feel-good movie for people who only comfortable around people who look and act just like them. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: For all its surface amiability, The Big Wedding might be one of the more frustrating films of the year. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: Sadly, superior talent can propel a movie only so far. Bad scripts beget bad movies, even when four Academy Award winners are involved. Read more