'Marry Me' Works With Owen Wilson & Jennifer Lopez

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Rating: 3.0/5.0

CHICAGO – I’ll admit that based on the ubiquitous trailers, The latest attempt for Jennifer Lopez to reclaim the throne as Queen of the Rom-Com seemed like the sort of enterprise meant to make you bury your face in your hands. So I was pleasantly surprised to find “Marry Me” is just innocuously bad, not egregiously bad… and with the state of rom-coms these days that’s something of an accomplishment.

Jennifer Lopez essentially plays Jennifer Lopez here as global pop star Kat Valdez. She has a messy personal life and a string of failed marriages and is about to say “I Do” again with fellow popstar Bastian (Columbian pop star Maluma) in front of an audience of millions. When a video of him cheating sends her into a complete meltdown, her eyes fall upon a face in the crowd and she exchanges vows then and there with a middle school math teacher and single Dad Charlie (Owen Wilson).

Marry Me
Photo credit: Universal Pictures

Her manager (Colin Calloway) convinces Wilson to go along with the marriage for a few months in order to let the public relations storm blow over. Wilson-as-Charlie isn’t a pushover here, and realizes he’s doing Lopez-as-Kat a far greater favor than what she’s doing for him. He acts as a voice of reason in a sea of annoying sycophants who surround her, and in the middle of photo ops, promotional events and red carpets they each find something they’ve been missing.

I wouldn’t have thought to throw them together, but Wilson and Lopez have an offbeat and surprisingly winning chemistry And that sells this ludicrous premise and helps it coast much farther than it would have gone otherwise. Wilson balances out Lopez and gives their relationship on screen some much needed grounding, plus Lopez shows flashes of the actual acting talent that made her a superstar in the first place.

The film works best when it allows Lopez and Wilson to just hang out and let their love grow rather than pushing them through the usual rom com paces. He’s got a lot of dorky Dad energy, and she’s been essentially playing pop star for two decades now but still manages to find some relatable human emotion. But Lopez also knows to give the fans what they want, so we get a mini J-Lo concert wedged in as well … a large portion of the film’s running time is devoted to performing the songs almost in full on screen.

Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson in ‘Marry Me’
Photo credit: Universal Pictures

Sarah Silverman scores consistent laughs in the best friend role as the guidance counselor at Charlie’s school. The supporting players in Valdez’ pop star machine range from mildly annoying to intolerable. The role of Kat’s manager seems to have been tailor made for James Corden, however Collin Calloway isn’t half as annoying … so that’s another upside.

The wheels kind of come off in the frantic third act with yet another ridiculous race to the airport for Wilson’s math team final in Peoria … it’s a sequence that seems to have been reverse engineered as an excuse for Lopez to run to a ticket counter in stilettos. “Marry Me” isn’t going to go down as one of the all time great love stories. It’s not even a particularly good love story. But if all you’re looking for is comfort food – that goes down easy and won’t make you feel awful for having devoted precious moments of your life in watching it – then have at it.

By SPIKE WALTERS Contributor HollywoodChicago.com spike@hollywoodchicago.com