It was because of circumstances beyond my control that I was dragged in to watch Bride Wars in the first place, and while I can't avoid admitting that I was truly, truly suffering for the first 30 minutes, I would be lying if I said the film is devoid of laughs. By that, of course, I mean that I did laugh out loud once or twice, briefly, and I was even pleasantly surprised by a mildly unexpected plot development late in the movie. But don't worry, everything else goes strictly by the age-old wedding movie formula. <br /><br />Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson play Emma and Liv, two twentysomethings who have been inseparable best friends since childhood. They have always shared everything, their triumphs, their failures, their emotions, their struggles, their hopes, and of course, their dream of getting married in exactly the same place, the luxurious Plaza Hotel (yes, it's a hotel). Much effort is put forth to get us to understand how close this friendship is, but in their efforts to get themselves engaged, a deep streak of competitiveness is revealed in both of them. Particularly Liv, who doesn't know better than to go jogging into her boyfriend's office and, dripping sweat, blurt out some nonsense about how he should propose to her. <br /><br />Thus is revealed the massive fallacy of logical thinking that permeates the entire movie – ladies, I'm sorry to sound like a chauvinist or whatever, but the run-up to your wedding is not the best time to start acting like a lunatic. Just a suggestion. Not that the grooms would notice, of course, especially not in this movie. Their sole job in the movie isn't just to not notice things, but to not be noticed. They are as unimportant as the honeymoon, which is never mentioned because the girls childhood dreams never extended beyond the wedding ceremony. Maybe they just planned to head on upstairs for a June honeymoon at the Plaza, too?<br /><br />Anyway, the girls get engaged within like, you know, minutes of each other, and then, due to a moronic clerical error, they accidentally get scheduled to be married at the Plaza Hotel at the exact same time on the exact same day. <br /><br />And henceforth, ladies and gentlemen, it's war.<br /><br />First of all, I will say that I have a tough time relating to this belligerent scramble to get married absolutely as soon as humanly possible, but that may simply be because I'm a guy. And if you take nothing else from this review, understand this, Bride Wars is NOT a movie made with the male audience in mind.<br /><br />But I'm willing to accept it, at least as an offshoot of the unspoken jealousy that seems to be finally emerging between them. You see, Liv has enjoyed some success as a lawyer while Emma is an underpaid schoolteacher, and ultimately Liv's sense of entitlement combined with Emma's decision that she's just not gonna take it anymore set up the escalating conflict that takes up the rest of the movie, but from here there's nowhere else to go except down the well-trodden path of half-assed romantic comedies. <br /><br />The biggest problem with the movie is that it tries to get us to laugh as we sit bewildered at how these life-long friends came to such childish blows as viciously sabotaging each other's dreams for reasons of such astonishing selfishness that not only their own grooms really factor into their heads. In fact, I'm surprised the movie didn't get an R rating for all the violence! Blue hair! Orange spray-on tans! Beware, this stuff is not for the squeamish!<br /><br />Of course, my favorite one was where Emma sends Liv enormous daily gift baskets consisting mainly of chocolates and cookies and, you know, butter (actual quote: "You mean you sat around eating sticks of butter from all over the world?"), because Emma was hoping she would gain enough weight to where she wouldn't be able to fit into her Vera Wang dress (for those of you who don't know Vera Wangs are supposed to be like, super super tight for some reason, and thus insanely expensive). Of course the plan succeeds, but the movie never really lets us know if it was the candy that made her gain weight or the sheer quantity of stupidity inside her that would be necessary for her not to figure out what was going on.<br /><br />But I will tell you this. Something happens involving one of the weddings that may even qualify as more than mildly surprising, because you just don't see this kind of thing in this kind of movie anymore. You'll know what I mean, it's the part just before Liv and Emma forget about their months of hatred toward each other as they lay amidst the ruins of both of their weddings surrounded by the surely disgusted families. <br /><br />Oh, yeah, they're best friends at the end. Is that a spoiler? I don't think so. Maybe. But if you can see a movie poster like this one and not immediately see the arc of the story, well then, you have bigger problems than some guy online ruining the end of a bad comedy.<br /><br />Besides, wouldn't it be more dishonest if I allowed you to spend your time and money watching this thing without knowing what you were getting into? In a situation like this, just trust me, it's better for you to be warned about the movie than to be warned about spoilers about the movie.