Was Bridesmaids more Bridezilla?

The last film of director Paul Feig's I saw, Knocked Up, I thought was flawed in such a way as not to be a glowing recommendation for seeing a new film. But there has been so much media attention given to his new flick, Bridesmaids, and it being my week off with more time on my hands thought I'd go and see if the hype was justified.

Annie (Kristen Wiig who co-wrote) is nearly at rock bottom in her life. Her cake shop business has gone under in the recession,  her boyfriend left her, her fuck-buddy doesn't like her sleeping over and debts are mounting.

She is asked by her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) to be her maid of honour. Lillian has a rag-tag group of bridesmaids all with their own ideas of how things should be organised but the group is dominated by Lillian's new friend, the beautiful, charming and rich Helen (Rose Byrne).

Helen is a much better organiser than Annie and has the money to go all out with the arrangements. Naturally Annie takes a dislikes to Helen and a battle for control and Lillian's attention ensues. Things naturally spiral out of control, this being a comedy afterall.

So here is what I liked about it:

It is very funny in places, I even snorted at one point.

There are some great characters. I particularly liked Lilian's future sister in law Megan (Melissa McCarthy) who suggests Fight Club as a theme for the 'batchelorette' party. And Chris O'Dowd's sensible cop Nathan, who pulls Annie over for a reckless driving and forms an attachment with her, for being, well, the only sensible character in the whole thing and all the more charming for it.

There are also some brilliantly observed moments - I'm sure there will be few women who watch this that won't recognise something even if they won't admit it.

But here is what I didn't:

It it excruciatingly annoying at times. I spent chunks of the film just wanting to slap Annie. The problem is that some of the jokes are laboured (the battle of the speeches at the engagement party is one). And, I have a problem with people being the engineer of their own downfall and not doing anything about it. A bit unfair perhaps but it does get ridiculous at points.

So on balance?

Well I left the cinema with a smile of my face and just watching the trailer back has made me laugh again so I'm giving it the thumbs up. It's getting 59% from me and, on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics have also enjoyed it with an average score of 90% while joe public has given it 84%. On IMDb it's got 7.7 out of 10