The ensemble romantic comedies in which Garry Marshall specialized late in his career were terrible, but Dennis Dugan’s makes them seem palatable. Despite the efforts of a game cast, this is a positively painful collection of interlocking sketches—like a sodden episode of the old Love Boat television series. The glue holding the soggy mess together is Jessie (Maggie Grace), a florist who forces her fiancé, a Boston TV anchorman, to go skydiving with her; he breaks up with her in mid-descent, after which they land in a lakeside wedding ceremony, a disaster that earns her the nickname “The Wedding Trasher” online.
An inveterate klutz, she later bumps into Lawrence Phillips (Jeremy Irons), a stuck-up, perfectionist wedding planner who just been fired from the nuptials of mayor candidate Robert Barton (Dennis Staroselsky), and gets hired as his replacement despite her inexperience. Meanwhile, Lawrence is forced into a blind date with Sara (Diane Keaton), who, being literally blind, destroys one of his carefully prepared wedding receptions.
Nevertheless, he mellows under her supposedly kooky charm, even helping Jessie arrange the Barton ceremony. The amity is, however, threatened by Robert’s dumb-as-a-post brother Jimmy (Andy Goldenberg), a sad-sack trying to win a million bucks on a TV quiz show hosted by sleazy Eddie Stone (Dugan), which chains incompatible couples together until an audience vote determines which of the duos that manage not to break their bonds wins.
Jimmy is linked to Svetlana (Melinda Hill), who claims to be a lawyer but is actually a stripper named Olga with an insanely jealous boyfriend, a Russian mobster. Then there’s Ritchie (Andrew Bachelor), the joke-spouting tour guide on a converted Boston duck boat, who falls for one of his customers, a quick-witted girl he calls his Cinderella(Rachel Wirtz).
Unfortunately, he loses her in the crowd and attempts to find her via a TV campaign arranged by a fan who just happens to be the co-host of a program with Jessie’s erstwhile fiancé. As for Jennie, she meets her soul mate when searching for a band to play at Robert’s wedding reception—Mack (Diego Boneta), whom she pairs with the park singer (Elle King) whose bland tunes have served as linking devices throughout. The reception of course is a great success, and you can guess whom Ritchie spies among the wait staff.
If all this sounds contrived and mirthless, rest assured it is worse in the watching than in the telling. Dugan lacks the slightest finesse, and under his heavy hand, most of the cast overacts badly: even Keaton and Irons are flummoxed by the witless material and crude staging. Butcher does a bad Kevin Hart imitation, while Goldenberg and Hill must endure a hapless succession of crass episodes, and Grace, supposedly a cheery presence is obnoxious. The last word in the title is the operative one. Not recommended.