Michelle Monaghan and Patrick Dempsey in Made of Honour
How soon is too soon when it comes to a remake? Two years? Five years?
Made Of Honour is a gender-reversed revamp of the 1997 romantic comedy
My Best Friend's Wedding, about a bed-hopping, commitment-shy
30-something who realises, almost too late, that he is in love with the
only woman he hasn't slept with.
Invariably, this emotional lightning bolt strikes at the precise moment
she is preparing to walk up the aisle... with another man.
Paul Weiland's film doesn't stray far too far from the original, except
perhaps for the climactic nuptials set against the breathtaking
loch-side setting of Dunvegan Castle on the Isle of Skye.
A Highland Games sequence is a good excuse to dress leading man Patrick
Dempsey in a most revealing mini-kilt as he struggles to get to grips
with the traditional tests of strength and skill.
"A tree? We're tossing a tree!" he gasps, staring dumbfounded at a
caber.
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Dempsey plies his natural charm to sidestep obvious shortcomings in the
script - weak characterisation, a lack of dramatic tension - and win our
sympathy.
Luckily for him, his rival for the heroine's affections is devoid of
personality and thinks the ultimate romantic gesture is a rousing chorus
of the traditional song "Love Is Like A Rose".
Och aye the no, no, no!
Obscenely wealthy playboy Tom (Dempsey) ricochets from one fling to the
next without any thoughts of commitment.
Best friend Hannah (Monaghan) despairs at his bed-hopping antics,
especially since she has secretly loved him since they were at
university.
MADE OF HONOUR (12A, 101 mins)
Released: May 2
Realising Tom will never reciprocate her feelings, Hannah leaves for a
six-week business trip to Scotland, where she falls for and agrees to
marry Colin McMurray (McKidd), whose family is regarded as local
royalty.
During the trip, Tom realises that he cannot live without Hannah.
To add to Tom's woes, she asks him to be the maid of honour, working
alongside bickering bridesmaids Melissa (Philipps), Whitney (Cummings)
and Hilary (Nelson) to ensure her big day passes without a hitch.
Made Of Honour is as predictable as an unseemly scrabble for the bride's
bouquet, intensifying Tom's misery until he is forced to tell Hannah, "I
can't be your maid of honour. I can't give you away".
Dempsey is adorable while Monaghan makes the most of her underwritten
role, seeing the niggling flaws in her husband-to-be just before the
biggest day of her life.
McKidd is woefully short-changed but at least does his countrymen proud
in swathes of tartan with a rousing display in the Braemar Stone throw.
Running gags about Tom being gay and Grandma Pearl's glow in the dark
necklace lose their lustre well before the congregation rises for the
wedding march.
Fans of the leading man from Grey's Anatomy will undoubtedly swoon "I
do" to every contrivance.
Everyone else should take Made Of Honour with a generous pinch of
confetti.
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