Shotgun Wedding (2023)

The essense of the plot is this--Darcy wanted a small wedding, but agreed to a destination wedding (in the Philippines--the suggestion being that they wouldn't go big and do Bali--overall this sub-text is very unappealing and if I were the Phillipine government I would protest and encourage people to watch a couple of Anthony Bourdain episodes from his trips to Manila to counter balance this). Her fiance Tom is trying to make everyone happy, because essentially none of their families are. It all goes terribly wrong when pirates invade the ceremony and Darcy and Tom are left with saving all their loved ones. This is not a good movie. As one critic put it, as an action movie/romantic comedy hybrid it’s too violent for comedy fans and not thrilling enough for thrill seekers. It’s not romantic enough for the romcom fans, despite the best efforts of Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel, and the back ground patter of the dueling family. What is amazing is that Jennifer Lopez looks nothing like her age of 52, and pulls off the gun slinging action hero role pretty convincingly, after she rips off her wedding dress and gets some army boots on. We watched on a trans-Pacific flight (the longest kind!) and it was perfect. No one's blood pressure went up and it didn't leave us with anything to contemplate that might interfere with sleep.