Our Family Wedding

"Our Family Wedding" has some good actors and two great actors, Forest Whitaker and America Ferrera, but a horrible script. A young interracial couple travel back home to tell their families they're getting married and to plan a quick wedding. Their fathers, their cultures and their families clash. This is just rehashed material and no better than a poor man's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner".

They were going for laughs, and although I did laugh-out-loud in a few scenes, most of the lines were just rude, and all of the characters, especially Whitaker's, were just being insubordinate. Every character had friction with one another and sometimes we weren't even privy to the reasons, so not only were we not laughing, we're frustrated as well.

The few laughs were not enough to overcome the frustration and many pointless scenes. Even if they were going for drama instead, there is no sense of drama just from watching characters act in horrible ways because the script tells them to. I can't really recommend "Our Family Wedding", only possibly to die-hard fans of the genre and fans of America Ferrera. This is a Ferrera we haven't seen before, mature and subdued, and she at least was nice to watch.

Do not pay attention to the ridiculously low rating this film has accumulated. It's hardly one of the best movies you'll ever see, but it is overall much more enjoyable than not.

The young leads are a charming, believable couple, and you do root for them.

I thought the more obvious (meaning unfunny) racial jokes were actually kept to a respectable minimum, considering that culture clash is the main premise of the movie.

Some scenes work better than others. One involving the families figuring out the "seating schematic" is quite clever and funny. One involving a bathroom is a rather shameless and unfunny ripoff of a scene from "Father of the Bride."

Carlos Mencia, I have to say, I don't think is funny or a particularly good actor. I kept finding myself imagining someone else in the part (*cough* George Lopez... or anyone else, really). But he wasn't enough to ruin the movie for me.

The best parts of the movie were the story with Forest Whitaker and Regina King, and anything with Charlie Murphy, who has a small but hilarious role. The one scene featuring him and Taye Diggs was the one time I laughed HARD. And yes, as another reviewer pointed out, the actress playing the sister was excellent.

Most of the plot points are predictable, yes, but I didn't really hold that against "Our Family Wedding." I at least had a better time than I've had at most real weddings. I give it a 6 out of 10.

America Ferreira and Lance Gross tell their fathers - hers, Carlos Mencia, his Forest Whitaker - they want to get married. Now there's the problem of the wedding, with all the attendant problems of blending their Mexican and Black heritages.

It's a good version of the standard movie of the fighting and angst of every movie about the problems leading up to the wedding, with all of the incidents so common to this sort of film, with a lot of soul-searching and spats that attend such films. It's helped along by a fine cast, including Regina Kimg and Angela's Johnson-Reyes, but the majority of the focus is on the fathers.

If you enjoyed this movie, your favorite bits will vary, but my favorite scenes are those shared by Whitaker and Gross, who speak together as if they are father and son, lovingly and sincerely.

Bob

i think there are too many of these movies these days. haven't we seen something like this a couple of years back with Ashton Kutcher?? with this movie its like im having a deja vu, and also very very predictable, nothing new or cool about it. the lead actors are pretty good but the plot is cheap and meaningless. we have seen the whole different culture uniting kinda thing, seriously we get the point no need to repeat it a hundred times.

while i was watching this, i was already imagining the ending and with no surprise it turned out exactly the way imagined it, thats how predictable it is. don't waste your time, you have seen this before!

Our Family Wedding is a race based culture clash comedy that starts out rather awkwardly.

Lucia Ramirez (America Ferrera) and Marcus Boys (Lance Gross) have been going out together for some time but have never told their parents about each other.

She is Hispanic, he is black. As the film starts there is an altercation when a black radio host (Forest Whitaker) as his car towed away by Carlos (Miguel Ramirez) leading to some racial slurs. You guessed it they are the dads and sparks fly when they later meet each other again.

You know where this film is going, it is a little like Meet the Parents but not as amusing. Once the ethnic differences are blown over, the film settles down as both parties understand each other but it should had been a lot funnier.