My Big Fat Greek Wedding

My rating: 1 - Kill Me Now

60 second review: Can I get just a piece of the luck of Vardalos? Please? I can't? OK then, I'll just write about what a shitty piece of sitcommish drivel, a driveby tapioca to the head shooting, poppycock, paint-by-the-numbers snoozefest whose success only goes to show exceedingly low level of intellect found in your average american audience. Train a monkey to sift through the tired, sad, regurgitated, coloscopic plots of all sitcoms from the 1950s to the present, grab a bunch of devices at random, and assemble them, and it would turn out much like this piece of pap. You can imagine the thought processes of said monkey as it pulled the well-worn and well-unloved but utterly unchallenging script pieces together. It all began with the "Funny Ethnicity: Greek!" block found in the writers class 101 hat.

Monkey: Greek! I love Greek! So many vowels! Olives! Gay people! What? Gay is too threatening? And Greek doesn't mean gay? Really? OOK! OK, then. (pulls the "Funny Ethnic Character: Father" block out, continues with the script construction) Ooh, look, here's a silly immigrant! Isn't he quaint?! He loves his old country! Oooh, look, here's another another one, only this one will make socially inappropriate remarks because - are you sitting down? are you? are you sure? - she doesn't understand the cultural norms! Isn't that a riot! And. And. A weird wizened old person! OOK!

Now let's make the protagonist an ugly-duckling who turns into a ... well, she's pretty much the same, but let's pretend she's a swan now and hook her up with a smiling, no personality, Ken-type who is supposed to be way above and outside her station but when they're together, upon further review, they actually look like an extremely normal 21st century couple. OK, so that last one's about as much fun as watching your obnoxious uncle and aunt show their slides from their trip to the 7-11 in Santa Fe. OOK! Hey, can we get some uncles in here? Monkey's Uncles? Is Randy Quaid available? What's that? He's not Greek? Are you sure? Ook! OK, then. Hmm. Now what? Oh, I know, let's throw in some family strife... have him change religions to hers because, you know, your belief in which god (if any) you follow really isn't a big deal, you just do it to please the inlaws... last minute funnies like... like... oh, hey! I know. A Zit! Isn't that a GAS?! And... and... let's give it to the protagonist on her wedding day!. At this point the monkey's 90-minute box of blocks is full so he gets a banana and goes home.

Isn't that racy? Isn't that exCITing?

What a fucking waste of time. Sure, if you're an invalid or in a nursing home and will welcome any sort of piffle as entertainment because you're ready to die anyway, this may fit the bill. It's a 90-minute sitcom. Oh, hey, they're actually turning it into a sitcom! Gee, no, I never thought of that.

It figures that something this annoyingly bland, unimaginative, and ordinary would be backed by the power of Tom Hanks (and Rita Wilson). Bland and Hanks go together like peas and carrots.