When she learn the script for the rom-com movie Shotgun Wedding ceremony, famous person Jennifer Lopez noticed a brand new expertise for her as an actress.
“I learn lots of romantic comedies, clearly,” Lopez instructed Rotten Tomatoes forward of the movie’s launch. “However this had the motion factor, which I had by no means finished. It was just a little extra broad. I felt like, Oh, I might get my Lucille Ball on right here! I simply felt like there was one thing new to discover right here for me that I hadn’t finished but.”
The Prime Video movie facilities on profitable lawyer Darcy Rivera (Lopez) and her fiancé, minor league baseball participant Tom Fowler (Josh Duhamel), as they gear up for his or her tropical island–set vacation spot marriage ceremony. With each of their households in tow, and the ceremony looming, issues get thrown into bloody chaos when a gaggle of pirates crash the festivities, leaving it as much as Darcy and Tom to save lots of the day — and their relationship.
The concept of Lopez and Duhamel as a troubled couple battling criminals sparks sufficient intrigue by itself to get viewers to tune in, however add a supporting forged that features Jennifer Coolidge taking part in Tom’s mother, Carol Fowler; Sonia Braga as Darcy’s mother, Renata; Cheech Marin as Darcy’s dad, Robert Rivera; D’Arcy Carden taking part in Harriet, Robert’s new girlfriend; Desmin Borges, as Tom’s finest man, Ricky; Callie Hernandez as Jamie, Darcy’s sister; Selena Tan as Margy, the resort supervisor; and Lenny Kravitz as Darcy’s flashy ex, Sean, and also you’ve obtained a wild rom-com romp.
(Photograph by Ana Carballosa/Prime Video)
“I all the time describe it as ‘Die Laborious at a marriage,’” stated co-star Carden.
“I describe it as ‘rom-combat,’” Marin added.
Early on in Shotgun Wedding ceremony, Darcy and Tom are separated from the remainder of the marriage celebration, organising the action-packed situation that units the couple up because the John McClanes of the story. And due to the film’s scaled-down forged, insular strategies through which it was shot, and areas — nearly all of it was shot at ÀNI Dominican Republic, an all-inclusive resort in Rio San Juan, Dominican Republic — the result’s a stunning stability between jungle skirmishes and resort comedy.
For Tan, who traveled all the way in which from Singapore to shoot her scenes, it wasn’t simply work; it was one heck of a surreal trip expertise.
“All of us housed collectively in these little, form of, Covid bubbles, as they referred to as it,” she stated. “I used to be there for 2 months in the identical villa with Lenny Kravitz, Jennifer Coolidge, D’Arcy Carden, and Sonia Braga. It was thoughts blowing. We simply stayed on this villa collectively; we couldn’t do anything. We needed to be collectively on a regular basis. So, we’d simply go to work after which come again to this attractive villa owned by this Canadian billionaire. And it was simply surreal, and actually stunning.”
(Photograph by Prime Video)
It’d be simple to check the ambiance of Shotgun Wedding ceremony to, say, The White Lotus. Each productions had been shot in the course of the top of the pandemic at a distant location, and have Jennifer Coolidge in scene-stealing roles. However apart for these commonalities, Marin acknowledged the chance to get again out and carry out, and achieve this in such a beautiful place, as motive sufficient to signal on to the challenge.
The resort set is the place various levels of household battle play out all through the movie, whereas the primary story follows Darcy and Tom via bodily challenges as they do all the things they will to remain alive and save their family members. The dynamic between the 2 stars, be it their comedic timing or chemistry, is the primary engine that drives the story.
Apart from the motion factor, which Lopez described as, “zany, zany, zany,” and the sheer indisputable fact that Lopez will get to disrupt the anticipated visible of her on-screen in a marriage costume — she accessorizes her robe with a loaded shotgun, right here — she factors to the emotional core of the story as the opposite element that drew her to the challenge.
(Photograph by Prime Video)
“There may be this actually nice emotional story on the core of those two folks actually determining if they’re suited to spend their lives collectively and discovering one another as soon as once more,” Lopez added. “And as she sheds this big costume that didn’t really feel like herself, she sheds the layers of being extra sincere with him. That is what I need. And, That is who I’m. So, I assumed that was very attention-grabbing.”
Duhamel famous that Lopez seemed pristine all through the shoot, whereas he was beat up and bloodied.
“Why am I all the time like a moist canine? She’s all the time wanting like Sophia Loren,” he stated.
(Photograph by Ana Carballosa/Lionsgate)
It’s fairly secure to say Shotgun Wedding ceremony isn’t your common, run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. Blood is spilled, issues explode, high-powered weaponry is fired. At occasions, even, it feels as if the film is giving a wink to the viewers as an understanding that they’re being taken on an unexpectedly wild experience. This isn’t The Wedding ceremony Planner.
Paying homage to motion rom-coms of the ’80s (Romancing the Stone, involves thoughts), it feels as if Shotgun Wedding ceremony is right here to remind audiences that it’s OK to let free and have a little bit of enjoyable, as a result of, from what we had been listening to, the whole forged had a ball.
“All people had been locked up for therefore lengthy,” Marin added. “We had been going stir loopy. After which, OK, however your reward is now you get to go to essentially the most stunning location on the earth and have the most effective folks wait on you. After which each from time to time it’s a must to be in a shot with Jennifer Lopez.”
46%
Shotgun Wedding ceremony
(2023)
is now streaming on Prime Video
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