LouHomey
From my favorite movies..
Beystiman
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
Staci Frederick
Blistering performances.
Charlotte Younge
But that's besides the point. I loved, loved, loved this movie! I am appalled IMDb, that this film has only received a 3.7/10 rating! Honestly, I was just making a review today about how the film industry needs a fresh take on things, something different, and this movie is it. It's been taken too harshly. Most movies are guilty of a few clichés here and there, but I felt this movie was so warm-hearted and genuine, and had a lovely message come across. You gotta admit, it took real cojones to make a movie about relationships we see everyday, but hardly talk about, out loud: Interacial couples. It had to be done... it's the 21st century, and I can barely list on my 10 fingers how many good films have been made about this topic. Guess Who (2005) comes to mind... but really, that's just sad that there aren't more interracial couples incorporated into movies, especially the big-budget ones. Pieces of April (2003) is another one, one that isn't listed as a comedy, but is in its own sense. Movies like these are dying to be made. There are so many cultures in the world, I would love to learn more about them. I actually learned from this movie too. I know traditions were always important when it came to weddings, but I didn't know it went as far as sacrificing a goat (don't worry, they don't actually do it). But I was cheering on Lucia (America Ferrera, love that girl) and Marcus (Lance Gross) the whole time.Just do it, watch this movie! It contains something soooo many movies are seriously lacking these days: CHEMISTRY! They actually seem like a real family. Don't worry, Carlos Mencia's acting isn't as bad as everybody says it is, Forest & Regina are just... bliss, I wish they really were a couple, and everyone else was just phenomenal. I did notice the lady who plays America's grandmother (Lupe Ontiveros) also played her mother in Real Women Have Curves (2002)... which only adds to the amazing chemistry! Ciao for now.
wmss
First of all,this was hardly the "worst film of the year" as one reviewer on this site wrote. THAT film was called "All About Steve." This one was in some ways a standard rom-com and yes,there were similarities to other films from "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" to "Meet the Fockers." But I find that all rom-coms have elements in common,so what's the big deal? The big deal is that this film involves a mixed race couple where neither one is white,in fact the girl is Mexican-American and the boy is African-American,both college educated and from families that are not poor. In fact the prospective groom's father has quite a bit of money,and the bride to be comes from a family that ,if not rich,is at least solidly middle class. I see why the critics,both professional and non,didn't "get it." None of the main characters is involved in gangs,drugs, or lives in the ghetto or the barrio. There are no men dressed in drag pretending to be grandmothers either . And there are no main characters that are white. No "best friend" no work buddy,no obnoxious boss. The plot involves people of color having to bridge a cultural divide. Are there clichéd moments? Sure. Were the fathers sometimes over the top in their dealings with one another? You betcha! Have we seen this in other films that didn't get nearly the lashing this one did? Certainly. I enjoyed this film because ,in spite of the normal conventions of its genre,it showed people of color as normal families dealing with a situation they may not like,but having to find a way to come together for the ones they love.
thesubstream
Our Family Wedding is a grim prospect on its face: a frantic wedding movie meets an uproarious culture clash movie, where two patriarchs - the smooth African-American and the fiery Latino - do hilarious battle and then there's some romance somewhere. It fails to deliver even on that meagre promise. Forest Whittaker and Carlos Mencia play the fathers of young lovers Marcus and Lucia (Lance Gross and America Ferrera) who return home to L.A. to announce their surprise engagement and plans to be married immediately. Things get complicated, when we learn that Lucia's family don't really like black people, and Marcus' father, a neat-freak radio DJ-cum-ladies'-man, doesn't like Mexican people. Predicaments predictably follow, in the proper order and to factory specifications.Despite a legitimately (for the most part) talented cast and a set-up almost guaranteed to be worth at least a few forced laughs, the film manages to be almost completely devoid of humour. It's a punishing, depressing display. The film knows what beats to hit, and tries with heroic, military determination to hit them only to fail, every single time. We're presented with the really uncomfortable knowledge that the film knows it should be funny, here, here and here, and is really trying, honest - see how the goat tries to have sex with the fancy man!? - but just can't quite haul it's hackneyed self anywhere close to an actual laugh. It's ugly and it tries to make you complicit in its ugliness, like when you walk in on your roommate three quarters of the way through an extra large pizza and they try and make you eat the last slice.To do the obvious thing and fail at it is the worst thing an artist can do. To offer a thin-gruel compromise to your audience, to say "here's a trite, rote ethnicity-clash wedding comedy that you know will be derivative but what else are you going to watch come on it can't be terrible" and then to hand them something terrible is just... rude. To ask us to watch Carlos Mencia flail his way through a grim, graceless Mr. Hulot-inspired bit of non-comedy is mean, and makes us feel badly about ourselves and the choices that brought us here.One bright spot: Anjelah Johnson as the tomboy sister of the bride is the only actor in the film that's able to wring a couple of laughs out of it, and the sisters' relationship is one of the only interesting things in a film that's otherwise not much more than a grim procession of joyless clichés. 2/10
gregeichelberger
Like a terrible version of "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" blended with "The In-Laws," "Father of the Bride," "Grand Canyon" and "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding," this newest effort by director Rick Famuyiwa (who has helmed such masterpieces as "Brown Sugar," "The Wood" and "Blacktop Lingo," among others), is one of the worst films of the year - so far.It also does for goats what "The Love Guru" did for elephants - burns a vision of those beasts in one's retinas that can never, ever be erased.Instead of blacks and whites coming together after fighting each other throughout the movie (and then reconciling in the end), we get blacks and Hispanics going at each others throats for almost 100 minutes with no relief or comedic situations to speak of, and certainly no satisfying resolution, one way or another.Plot has ultra-wealthy Marcus (Lance Gross, part of the Tyler Perry's "House of Payne" clan), son of Brad Boyd (Forrest Whittaker, Oscar-winner for "Last King Of Scotland"), who falls in love with Lucia Ramirez (America Ferrera, "Ugly Betty"), the salt-of-the-earth daughter of a tow-truck driver, Miguel (stand-up comedian Carlos Mencia, of Comedy Central fame).One day, Miguel has to haul away Boyd's Rolls-Royce which is parked illegally or something like that. Of course, the two begin to argue and also to throw around the first in a series of stereotypical black and Hispanic insults. Get used to this, folks.Like every other film (and television sit-com) of this ilk, the befuddled young couple is excited to spring the big news, but something always spoils it. Here, the setting is a fancy restaurant where Boyd and Ramirez fire more racial insults at one another and forbid the marriage.Rest of film consists of young couple trying to mend fences while various oft-used situations take place (elderly Latina grandmother falls over when she sees Marcus is black, sensible mothers try to reign in husbands' bigotry and stupidity, extended families meet to discuss wildly divergent wedding preparations, sappy talk between father and daughter, a wedding cake fight and some kind of sports or civic event - here it's an amazingly unfunny softball contest in which the two dads, of course, face off against one another).Do the nuptials take place? Do the fathers-in-law come to some kind of agreement? Will Marcus and Lucia stay together forever? Will there be a whole slew of black-Hispanic "comedies" made after this? Was I a complete moron for watching this drivel? Well, I can answer "yes" to the last two questions, at least.Mencias should go back to his stand-up routine while Whittaker needs to give his Oscar to the man who SHOULD have won it - Peter O'Toole (for "Venus"). After "Vantage Point," "Street Kings" and now this turkey, the Academy Award gods have had enough. Ask Cuba Gooding, Jr. Gross and Ferrera are typical young leads, boring and insignificant, while only Marcus' mom, Regina King ("Ray") comes anywhere near a halfway decent effort.So, if one likes watching people of different races and ethnicities screaming at one another, another movie in which men are made out to be total idiots, bigoted and racist material being bandied about (imagine if one of the leads was a WHITE person) and a goat with an erection (don't ask), then by all means, shell out 10 bucks to see this movie, you won't be sorry at all.