PRINTMovie Review: Made of Honor
Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment
Patrick Dempsey is about to propose to Michelle Monaghan until she flashes an engagement ring from Kevin McKidd in Made of Honor. Talk about great timing.
May 8, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Made of Honor is a cookie-cutter romantic comedy that satisfies love-hungry women seeking comfort in a good chick flick. But with the exception of a gender swap, it adds no originality or twists reminiscent of its obvious forerunner, 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding.
A smooth womanizer, Tom (Patrick “McDreamy” Dempsey) and elegant but snappy Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) each have enjoyable screen presence on their own and as a couple. The two meet in college, and 10 years later we find them together every Sunday on enviable jaunts antiquing and indulging in delicacies.
Both are single and rich — Tom from inventing the cardboard hand protectors on coffee cups and Hannah as an established art curator. They remain single until Hannah goes to Scotland for six weeks and returns with a manly man — a rich duke — who appears on horseback and steals her heart. Tom then jeopardizes all of his masculinity to be the best maid of honor, with the goal of stealing the bride. Of course, the affluent Scotsman (Kevin McKidd) is the picture-perfect man who always proves to be stronger and more accomplished than Tom.
There are comical moments, such as countless attacks on Scottish cuisine and a sex toy demonstration at the wedding shower that drapes Hannah’s grandma in glow-in-the-dark anal beads. Unfortunately, the humor is not enough to make up for the film’s lack of freshness. By the final scene at the altar, when Dempsey is thrown through the church doors as the minister announces “or forever hold your peace,” viewers are done dreaming about McDreamy and ready for a newer take on the “my best friend is my soul mate” story.
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