It’s Super Bowl weekend, the movie theatres are supposed to be empty. What a great time to open a movie which appeals to women! The story of a young woman, a wedding planner, who falls in love with a man about to marry another woman. A woman who just hired her to plan the wedding! Can she steal the guy away? Will she find happiness? Can you just see the hordes of females storming out of their homes, leaving the men in their lives to that stupid game, to fill all those theatre seats and have a Super Bowl weekend really worth remembering? Can you? Well, after seeing this movie, frankly, I can’t. I’m thinking the studio people have just dumped this movie off on a weekend they have long given up on.

Jennifer Lopez plays Mary, our wedding planner. This is the lady who thinks she’ll be bigger than Madonna one day. Well, I haven’t heard her sing, but her movie career is so far almost as big as Madonna’s, and that ain’t saying much. Of course, she’s always got Sean “Puffy” Combs to fall back on. That is, if he isn’t falling over himself from a gunshot wound.

Mary hasn’t had a date in two years, but is a sensitive, intelligent, beautiful woman who’s fantastic at her job, and has dreamed of her own perfect wedding. Why no dates? They explain it, but it’s pretty hard to accept. Her father, played by Alex Rocco, raised her in Italy for a few years and has decided it’s time for her to marry, so he sends for an Italian boy she once played with to be her groom. He is, of course, still incredibly in love with her. This is not only unbelievable but annoying. The guy, named Massimo (no, not the designer, he’s Mossimo) is an irritating comic disaster. Speaking with a bad fake accent, he is supposed to be some of the comic relief of the movie. Yep, we’re in trouble here. And people pay to have these movie scripts written!

Matthew McConaughey plays the part of Steve, the guy Mary falls for, but he’s engaged to Fran, played by Bridgette Wilson-Sampras (yes, tennis fans, the real life wife of Pete Sampras). You see, Mary meets Steve before she discovers he’s the groom in Frans’ wedding plans. This is where things really fall apart. Since Steve goes on a date with Mary while engaged to Fran, the writers of this nincompoop parade(I just really wanted to use nincompoop in a sentence) try to balance his indiscretion with equal missteps by Mary. Such as her “engagement” to the Italian nitwit, and Steves trying to convince Mary they weren’t really on a date. Lame, lame, lame. I can suspend belief plenty when a movie has something going for it, but since this one didn’t, it just gets annoying. I will say McConaughey is light years ahead of everyone else in this movie on the acting scale. But what’s up with his hair? When you’re bored by a movie you notice other things, and his hair was weird. Too much humidity, I guess. Ever hear of a comb, Matthew? As for Jennifer Lopez, the Madonna want-to-be, this movie will probably be remembered as her “Shanghai Surprise” (anybody remember that one, which starred Madonna? How about “Who’s That Girl?”). I can say that she does have the body. Unlike all these gaunt women like the females on the TV sitcom “Friends,” Lopez has some meat on her. That rear end is deserving of some kind of honor. But “The Wedding Planner”, brings up the rear end too. I give it a “3.0.”