Bachelorette makes Bridesmaids look like The Wizard of Oz by comparison. When you take the chemistry of Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph away in favor of hateful women with contempt for the person getting married, then you have an unfunny knock off that lacks any payoff. If this film had the guile to push a really awful ending for these women, Bachelorette might have been redeemed. As is, it is one of the worst films of 2012.
Becky (Rebel Wilson) the put-upon member of the girlfriends, is getting married. This causes all sorts of unnecessary stress for the queen bitch Regan (Kirsten Dunst), the slut Gena (Lizzy Caplan), and the ditz Katie (Isla Fisher). The bridesmaids attempt to consume the wedding and inadvertently tear the wedding dress, leading to a night revolved around invading the bachelor party of the groom with Gena’s ex Clyde (Adam Scott) and Regan’s nemesis Trevor (James Marsden).
Bachelorette is rated R; however, the gags are uninspired and unnecessary. The R rating is used for expletive laden tirades and dirty sex talk that goes nowhere and does not fit in with the story most of the time. Bulimia is mentioned in a jokey context several times when a character who legitimately might die ingested several pills. Bachelorette’s jokes are in poor taste and only appeal to the very lowest common denominator.
Geez are all of these people horrible other than the bride and groom. That can be ok if something is learned by the end of the film or if we dig deep and understand the real reason for their ugly behavior, but Bachelorette just lets them exist as is with no real payoff. Worst of all, these characters are mostly given happy endings because of the unearned (and sometimes absent) “lessons” each character learns along the way. These lessons return them to the way they were at the beginning of the film, justifying their actions throughout the entire film.
Lizzy Caplan, Isla Fisher, and Kirsten Dunst should fire their agents. This movie is especially bad for Dunst, who takes every negative viewpoint of a bridesmaid and pushes it to reality TV show drama queen levels. James Marsden and Adam Scott come out a little better, but not much so; plus they are not really interesting.
If you were interested in Bachelorette, I hope by the end of this review you realize that it is not worth your time. Watch Bridemaids again, since it is much funnier and has way more heart. Just forget this movie ever existed; Kirsten Dunst is already in damage control.