Shotgun Wedding (2023)

Streaming Service: Amazon Prime
Movie Name/Year: Shotgun Wedding (2023)
Genre: Action, Comedy, Romance
Length:  1h 40min
Rating: R
Production/Distribution: Mandeville Films, Maximum Effort, Nuyorican Productions, Lionsgate, Amazon Prime Video
Director: Jason Moore
Writers: Mark Hammer
Actors: Jennifer Lopez, Josh Duhamel, Lenny Kravitz, Cheech Marin, Jennifer Coolidge, Alex Mallari Jr., Callie Hernandez, D'Arcy Carden, Desmin Borges, Héctor Aníbal, Melissa Hunter, Sônia Braga, Steve Coulter
 
IMDb Blurb: A couple's extravagant destination wedding is hijacked by criminals. In the process of saving their families, they rediscover why they fell in love in the first place.
  

Cat’s Point of View:
Was Shotgun Wedding the best movie I’ve seen this month? No, not by a long shot. That being said, however, it wasn’t the worst, either. Don’t get me wrong – I had a great time watching Shotgun Wedding. It was a bit of a mixed bag, though. Of course, that warrants a bit of explanation.
 
I was pretty excited at the prospect of Shotgun Wedding. The trailer had me in stitches, and the combination of Josh Duhamel (Night of the Animated Dead, Blade Runner: Black Lotus, Bandit) and Jennifer Lopez (Shades of Blue, Second Act, Hustlers) - not to mention the rest of the well-known supporting cast – felt like a real winning combination. I even listed this movie as my #4 on January 2023’s Top 20 list.

 
Action and comedy are a winning pairing and Shotgun Wedding promised both and pirates! With Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect, Sisters, Tales of the City) at the helm, it felt like at the very least the comedy and dramatic elements were in good hands. It was the action that I was a little concerned about. All told, those parts weren’t too shabby.
 
Were there some really hokey bits here and there? Yes, absolutely – and it was clear that it was done that way on purpose. Everything felt a bit more light-hearted… even when super serious events were taking place.

 
I don’t really understand the hate the critics have been lobbing at Shotgun Wedding. It was fun and actually had a few elements in it that I hadn’t seen done 1000 times before. For a rom-com, that’s saying something. Though, I get it to some extent. It just wasn’t Marry Me (2022). That was the point, though, right? It wasn’t meant to have the same vibe as the film J-Lo had done before.
 
Anyone who finds themselves poking through Prime Video and is in the mood for a laugh wouldn’t go wrong by selecting Shotgun Wedding. I wouldn’t even mind watching it again, myself.

 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 47%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score –59%
Metascore – 46%
Metacritic User Score – 8.1/10
IMDB Score –5.6 /10
 
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 4/5
 
Movie Trailer: