Metascore
47 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 31 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 31
  2. Negative: 2 out of 31
  1. 75
    Mostly silly and always frothy, as sugary at times as wedding-cake frosting but tempered with a welcome strain of sour grapes, mostly doled out by the peerless Judy Greer as Jane's cynical, slutty best friend.
  2. Predictable but utterly engaging, 27 Dresses will likely be remembered as the film that made Katherine Heigl an A-list star.
  3. Reviewed by: Joe Leydon
    70
    Frothy, funny and formulaic, 27 Dresses is a pleasantly predictable romantic comedy that sees Katherine Heigl following "Knocked Up" with smooth moves at the wheel of her first starring vehicle.
  4. It delivers everything you expect on a timetable you can predict to the minute. It's filmmaking as a cross between a carefully choreographed dance and an elaborate pageant.
  5. Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    63
    27 Dresses is like one of the many bridesmaid dresses featured in the film: frothy, predictable and over the top.
  6. 63
    A sporadically entertaining cupcake of a movie.
  7. 63
    There's not a surprising moment in the movie yet it works in spite of the stale, insipid storyline. That has a lot to do with lead actress Katherine Heigl and a little to do with the glowing embers between her and her co-star, James Marsden.
  8. Reviewed by: Angie Errigo
    60
    Cute, cute, cute. No bouquets for originality, but it pushes all the buttons of this mini-genre, and Heigl and Marsden ring dem bells.
  9. 27 Dresses is a movie geared to a pitch of high matrimonial-princess fever.
  10. The romantic comedy 27 Dresses will work best for people who have never seen a romantic comedy. If you have, you might find it amusing to tally up the steals – I mean, homages.
  11. While Heigl is terrific, this uninspired romantic comedy is considerably less so.
  12. 50
    So flimsy it gives froth a bad name.
  13. The eerily precise Heigl, who provided confident back-court support as the exile in Guyville also known as "Knocked Up," has no trouble filling a leading lady's shoes. She's just snarky enough to be interesting, and she knows how to take a fall.
  14. Marsden's natural charisma is totally wasted in an unlikable role, while Burns doesn't even try to hide his boredom.
  15. 50
    No worse and no better than the majority of chick flicks.
  16. Much as I gnashed my teeth during 27 Dresses, I genuinely enjoyed the warmth of Heigl's and Marsden's confident ease. While both might be a few minutes past their star-is-born moment, these troupers with more than 30 years of professional work between them have never shone so brightly. It may sound contradictory, but loved them, hated IT.
  17. 50
    Light, formulaic and soft around the middle.
  18. Reviewed by: Ryan Stewart
    50
    A chick-flick on a sugar high, so giggly-bouncy and nostalgic for the fantasy-girlhood of its audience that the DVD, which should follow relatively quickly, should come packaged in big pink bows and include a coupon for a free pony ride.
  19. Almost everything about this starring vehicle for Katharine Heigl feels borrowed from some previous romantic comedy.
  20. 50
    There are glimpses of the wit McKenna displayed in "Prada," but these brief gasps of life are quickly suffocated by the inevitable schmaltz.
  21. The jokes hit about half the time – the best bits have an off-the-cuff feel – and it's pocked with the kind of rom-com clichés that are practically written in stone (screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna's script for "The Devil Wears Prada" was far sharper).
  22. 27 Dresses dutifully privileges its formulaic plot over its stick-figure characters, slapping a happy ending on a setup that, say, "Happiness" director Todd Solondz could have gone to town on.
  23. 50
    As the director, Anne Fletcher, methodically cuts back and forth between two weddings, she makes the reasonably insightful, moderately funny point that modern American weddings, however they may strain for individuality and specialness, are all pretty much alike. The problem is that much the same could be said about modern American romantic comedies.
  24. 50
    Katherine Heigl makes an official bid for America's Sweetheart in her sophomore effort, 27 Dresses, a romantic comedy that -- despite her undeniable, apple-cheeked appeal -- sags like a day-old bouquet.
  25. For most of this romantic comedy, fatuous contrivances run neck and neck with what seem to be authentic observations about repressed sibling rivalry; some of the latter are too painful to be funny, and eventually the contrivances win out, but the cast keeps it all watchable.
  26. 50
    It's a tangle unknotted in the most predictable fashion by Aline McKenna's script, and with little flair from choreographer-turned-director Anne Fletcher.
  27. The only bright spot is Marsden, a great actor who's always stuck playing the less-desirable romantic rival (see: "The Notebook," "X-Men," "Superman Returns"). He finally gets the fun-guy role for a change and does everything he can to rip it up. He can only do so much.
  28. The biggest disappointment of 27 Dresses is that it inhabits a Harlequin romance New York City, one remarkably short on homosexuals and divorce.
  29. Reviewed by: Robert Wilonsky
    40
    A forgettable, formulaic comedy so predictable that seeing it and skipping it are the exact same thing.
  30. Katherine Heigl carries 27 Dresses when all else fails, which it does with great regularity.
  31. It gets worse and worse as it goes along and finally ends just as it's becoming unbearable.
User Score

Mixed or average reviews- based on 72 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 37
  2. Negative: 9 out of 37
  1. This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view. Every once and awhile I will give into my wife’s request to watch some girlie movie she wants me to watch. Every single Valentine’s Day from the time we first started dating, has been spent watching some eye gougingly bad movie that she enjoys and I can’t stand. Often times it is preceded by her telling me that she thinks I’ll like it…she has been wrong every time. This is one of those movies she begged me to see for so long and said I would like. Oh how wrong she was…how very…very…wrong. Thirty something Jane, (Katherine Heigl, played to her usual annoying fervor) is always a bridesmaid and never a bride. One wedding after another she is in the wedding party of a friend and its starting to get on her nerves. She is hopelessly in love with her boss (Edward Burns) and has her younger sister, Tess (Malin Akerman) coming to visit. That same sister seduces that same boss and lies the whole time while doing it and ends up getting engaged to him with the wedding happening in three weeks time. Through this all, a writer named Kevin (James Marsden), who is cynical about love of course, meets Jane at one of her many weddings and is covering the engagement of George and Tess. But unbeknownst to Jane, this never happens in these types of movies, he’s really doing a story on Jane and her many bridesmaid dresses, because he found and looked in her planner. Jane can’t stand Kevin (which never means they’ll end up together) and watch her one true love go off with her spoiled sister. Heard this story before? That’s because it’s been told a thousand times already with whoever the latest popular actress is. The problem is, it has been done better. Why is Katherine Heigl even a star, will somebody please explain that to me? Her mannerisms are beyond annoying, her whiny voice assaults the ears like a wounded cat coughing up a hairball full of sandpaper and she is moderately pretty, only to drop a few notches once she opens her mouth. James Marsden is better than this, only problem with him is that he can be a star but keeps picking the wrong roles. And Edward Burns must have just needed some spending money. This movie is sooooo lame. The best thing about it is it gave me another article to write. Everything is predictable, every single thing. The male lead thinks marriage is dumb and love is even dumber, but wait about 45 minutes, ‘cause he’ll change his mind. In this movie, it’s because there was one drunken night of sex with Jane and that makes him rearrange his thoughts on love and marriage. That is extremely insulting to the audience. It isn’t a sacrificial circumstance or a heartfelt change of mind, but the fact that they ended up in bed together. This isn’t the only thing wrong with this character. He was hired for a specific job, but the entire time he is complaining about that job to his boss and whining about it, all because he thinks he’s better than that and should be doing something different. He thinks he should be doing what he wants, not the job he is paid to do. Then get a different job you gamook! Find someone hiring for that position and present your supposed skills in this area and let the hiring party decide if you are worthy or not. I can’t stand this in movies! They took every romantic comedy cliché and slapped it together to make this trash. The musical montage of trying on clothes, the group sing along, the misunderstanding between the two leads that you can see coming a mile away, the mad dash of the lead actress to wherever the lead actor is to tell him she loves him and then having that speech in front of a huge crowd, blah, blah, blah. Why does Hollywood think this is all that love really is? No sacrifice, no real change in perception, well, not without sex anyway. One character does get a much-needed comeuppance moment, but it doesn’t redeem the movie at all. In the end Jane finally gets her wedding and the audience has already checked out and could care less. Thanks Abby for stealing another few hours of my life. Full Review »
  2. EcG.
    2
    Challenges "The Notebook" for all-time worst movie. The film equivalent of watching Britney Spears manager her life; which is to say, a train wreck. Like a burning accident, however, I watched it till the end. Full Review »
  3. MegG
    0
    THE WORST movie ever. Katherine Heigl could not save this film. I watched this film without sound in an airplane and I could see how bad and predictable the film was. Not only was Heigl's character annoying, the actor who plays her best friend has played the best friend role so many times, she's literally unwatchable. I would not even recommend this film as a DVD film to watch, not even if it was on TV for free. Full Review »