by MARK SLUTSKY

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn are funny guys—very funny guys—and they tend to be entertaining to watch in most material, usually heedless of its quality. The two now co-star in Wedding Crashers, a comedy helmed by David Dobkin (who also directed Wilson in Shanghai Knights), and while the movie may not be perfect, it’s pretty fun regardless. This is largely thanks to the talented leads.

Wilson and Vaughn play best buds whose preferred spring pastime is, not surprisingly, crashing weddings to pick up chicks. Having been at it for a dozen years, they’re well-versed in a myriad of seduction techniques, altering their identities, and just being the life(s) of the party. At one wedding, though, for the daughter of a prominent politician (Christopher Walken), John (Wilson) falls hard for the bride’s sister Claire (Rachel McAdams). This leads, somewhat implausibly (but who cares?), to our two heroes being invited to the family’s prep-a-riffic Maryland summer home for the weekend, and to plenty of hijinks, as Claire already has a jerky, hyper-aggressive boyfriend.

Most of the movie takes place over this weekend, and the actual wedding crashing itself doesn’t get so much play; the movie might as well be called Weekend Guest Guys. In fact, the movie weirdly gets the crashing out of the way by lumping it all into an awkward montage sequence near the beginning of the movie. There’s plenty of funny stuff there, and it’s kind of a shame to see this particular conceit, which has a lot of humorous potential, discarded so quickly. The movie returns to the theme by the end, and the payoff is great, but more hilarious wedding crashing would’ve been appreciated.

Still, there’s a lot to like here. Vaughn and Wilson play off each other well, McAdams is charming, Walken is always a welcome presence and I particularly enjoyed the preppy madras-pants-and-pink-sweater-vests world that a bulk of the movie takes place in. Maybe I’m just a sucker for topsiders, I dunno. I certainly wasn’t unhappy with the movie, but I felt like it needed about 50 per cent more laughs to be a really great comedy. More crashing, less weekending!

Wedding Crashers opens Friday, July 15

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