Once upon a time, the action comedy was a big deal. It made huge stars and became a staple of blockbuster cinema. Bad Boys, 21 Jump Street, Beverley Hills Cop, and Spy, were all hugely successful and did wonders for all of the talent involved. So why have action comedies fallen off massively in the last few years? And why are they bypassing a theatrical release and going straight to streaming platforms?
Action comedies are great crowd pleasers. They blend our favourite genres – action and comedy – to make the ultimate popcorn flick. Not only did those aforementioned titles blend those genres perfectly, but they never substituted the action for more comedy, or vice versa. They had great action and great gags, they were proper romps with a lot of heart. Since a lot of action comedies have been sent direct to streaming, the action comedy has become a victim of over saturation, quick production turnaround, and all around laziness. Bride Hard is yet another example of how streaming is devaluing the action comedy.
Never mix business with pleasure. For badass secret agent Sam (Rebel Wilson), that hasn’t been difficult. But now she’s tasked with one of the hardest missions yet – being maid of honor for her childhood best friend. Deep out of her comfort zone, Sam barely maintains her cover as a dependable friend even on the day of the extravagant wedding. And what’s worse, the three bridesmaids are judging her every move. But when a team of mercenaries take the uber-wealthy wedding guests hostage, it’s up to Sam to do what none of the other bridesmaids can – wage war on anyone who would ruin the most important day of her best friend’s life.
Bride Hard’s one saving grace is the absolute shift that Rebel Wilson is putting in trying to hold the ship together. She’s a fun protagonist and action is a bit more out of her usual comfort zone, and she does an adequate job in the fight sequences. Wilson has a strong track record of being a lot of fun in comedy films, but the script for Bride Hard is so painfully unfunny, even she can’t spin the one liners to generate a chuckle.
The rest of Bride Hard is pretty dire. The rest of the cast are veterans in their own right, but it’s clear that they are all phoning in their performances. Anna Camp is especially bad in this as the best friend of Wilson’s Sam, but who can blame her with the one-dimensional character and painfully dull dialogue she has to spit out. Bride Hard‘s biggest crime is just how cheap and tacky it looks. Many of the special effects and CGI shots look very amateurish considering this is an action comedy with a name talent. There’s a particular sequence towards the end that is so blatantly filmed in front of a green screen it’s laughable.
What makes Bride Hard an even more of a misfire is that it’s directed by Simon West, who has decades of experience in action filmmaking. This is the filmmaker behind the Nicholas Cage classic Con Air, the first Tom Raider film with Angelina Jolie, Expendables 2 and many more. This guy knows how to make a fun action film, but nothing about Bride Hard clicks. You would at least expect some shootouts or a pretty well-choreographed fight scene, but this has nothing going for it.
Bride Hard could have been the ultimate guilty pleasure popcorn flick. The ingredients were there, but the execution is so bad, and the lack of effort makes the final product one of the ugliest, laziest, and instantly forgettable action comedies of recent times.
Bride Hard is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video
