Metacritic Film

27 Dresses

Starring Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, Malin Akerman, Ed Burns, Melora Hardin, and Judy Greer

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for language, some innuendo and sexuality

20th Century Fox
Comedy  |  Romance
107 minutes | Color
USA
Released In Theaters January 18, 2008

Jane has always been good at taking care of others, but not so much in looking after herself. Her entire life has been about making people happy – and she has a closet full of 27 bridesmaid dresses to prove it. One memorable evening, Jane manages to shuttle between wedding receptions in Manhattan and Brooklyn, a feat witnessed by Kevin, a newspaper reporter who realizes that a story about this wedding junkie is his ticket off the newspaper’s bridal beat. Jane finds Kevin’s cynicism counter to everything she holds dear – namely weddings, and the two lock horns. Further complicating Jane’s once perfectly-ordered life is the arrival of younger sister Tess. Tess immediately captures the heart of Jane’s boss, George. Tess enlists her always-accommodating sister to plan yet another wedding – Tess and George’s – but Jane’s feelings for him lead to shocking revelations…and maybe the beginning of a new life. (20th Century Fox)

WRITTEN BY
Aline Brosh McKenna

DIRECTED BY
Anne Fletcher

Overall Metascore

This is a weighted, normalized average of all individual scores given by critics, on a scale of 0 (worst) to 100 (best).

47 / 100

Critic Reviews

75 Baltimore Sun
Predictable but utterly engaging, 27 Dresses will likely be remembered as the film that made Katherine Heigl an A-list star.
75 Miami Herald
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.
70 Variety
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.
67 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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.
63 ReelViews
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.
63 Boston Globe
A sporadically entertaining cupcake of a movie.
63 USA Today
27 Dresses is like one of the many bridesmaid dresses featured in the film: frothy, predictable and over the top.
60 Empire
Cute, cute, cute. No bouquets for originality, but it pushes all the buttons of this mini-genre, and Heigl and Marsden ring dem bells.
58 Christian Science Monitor
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.
58 Entertainment Weekly
27 Dresses is a movie geared to a pitch of high matrimonial-princess fever.
50 Austin Chronicle
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).
50 Chicago Tribune
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.
50 The Onion (A.V. Club)
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.
50 Premiere Ryan Stewart
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.
50 Washington Post
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.
50 The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Almost everything about this starring vehicle for Katharine Heigl feels borrowed from some previous romantic comedy.
50 New York Post
No worse and no better than the majority of chick flicks.
50 The New York Times
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.
50 Chicago Reader
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.
50 Los Angeles Times
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.
50 The Hollywood Reporter
While Heigl is terrific, this uninspired romantic comedy is considerably less so.
50 TV Guide
Light, formulaic and soft around the middle.
50 Film Threat
There are glimpses of the wit McKenna displayed in “Prada,” but these brief gasps of life are quickly suffocated by the inevitable schmaltz.
50 Rolling Stone
So flimsy it gives froth a bad name.
50 New York Daily News
Marsden's natural charisma is totally wasted in an unlikable role, while Burns doesn't even try to hide his boredom.
50 Philadelphia Inquirer
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.
42 Portland Oregonian
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.
40 Salon.com
The biggest disappointment of 27 Dresses is that it inhabits a Harlequin romance New York City, one remarkably short on homosexuals and divorce.
40 Village Voice Robert Wilonsky
A forgettable, formulaic comedy so predictable that seeing it and skipping it are the exact same thing.
30 Wall Street Journal
Katherine Heigl carries 27 Dresses when all else fails, which it does with great regularity.
25 San Francisco Chronicle
It gets worse and worse as it goes along and finally ends just as it's becoming unbearable.

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