I was honestly planning on watching something decent this week. Maybe even something especially for awards season. It was all meant to be so good and easy. Then I woke up feeling like death and I couldn’t bring myself to watch a film longer than 90 minutes long. Thankfully, there’d been a film I’d been eyeing up for a while that I knew wouldn’t be too long or too taxing. A film that appeared on the side of every bus that drove past my work for the first part of 2023. I never expected it to be any good but I certainly thought it would be fun. Or, at the very least, a distraction from the sorry state I was in. Watching Jennifer Lopez running around and shooting people wearing a wedding dress? It sounded exactly what I was looking for.

It was only in 2019 that Jennifer Lopez was winning loads of awards for her role in Hustlers. Since then, she has starred in Marry Me and this Prime original movie. Not quite the same calibre. However, I will say that they are easy to watch. You know what you’re getting with these types of films and they don’t really require much attention. Plus, we know we’re in safe hands when Jennifer Lopez is heading up a romcom. It’s what she’s done so many time and she does it well. Lopez is charming and doesn’t take herself too seriously. She’s far stronger than her co-star Josh Duhamel but he does a decent enough job with an obviously secondary role. Together, they make a fun partnership and make this silly film an awful lot of fun.

It was clear from the trailer how this was going to go but would it make the most of it? After all, it boasts a fantastic cast that included Jennifer Coolidge and Lenny Kravitz. Sort of. I won’t pretend that this is the greatest film that you’ll ever see but it is enjoyable for what it is. Family and friends fly to a private island in the Philippines. They’re there to celebrate the wedding of Tom and Darcy. She is a lawyer who doesn’t seem too bothered by the wedding. Him a failed baseball star who is spending too much time on Etsy and Pinterest to create his big day. They don’t necessarily seem like the most obvious pairing but they seem to work. Until a few last-minute cold feet obviously. Of course, these are quickly forgotten when pirates take everyone hostage but the bridge and groom. Can the spouses-to-be save their loved ones?

There are more than a few missed opportunities here and the story never really goes as far as it could. Like Tom and Darcy’s different attitudes to the wedding. It feels as though there could have been a more insightful conversation about gender stereotypes in there somewhere but it’s just turned into a cheap gag. I understand that this wasn’t the film for social commentary but still. What this film does is have a lot of fun. It boasts some very good performance. Many of which are better than a film like this deserves. Not everything about this film works and not every single joke lands. That doesn’t matter. It does what it sets out to do, which is have a lot of fun.