Wedding Crashers starts out as an extremely funny movie but after about 45 minutes it starts to fall prey to the problems that seem to be showing up in all comedies made since the year 2000. The first problem is that no one knows how to write a complete comedy anymore. It seems as though the comedies in the new millennium get pitched with one or two really good jokes and then that is all they have. It is true what they say that the funniest parts in most comedies these days are shown in the trailers. It used to be that you could find gold in almost every scene of comedies of old. A Christmas Story which was made in 1983 is a simple little comedy that thrives today because every scene in that movie has some kind of comedy gem. Any movie by the Marx Brothers was packed full of comedy genius from beginning to end as long as you could get through the tiresome musical numbers. The comedies of today that seem to get glowing reviews and accolades cannot sustain the laughs for a complete movie and Wedding Crashers is a great example of that. Wedding Crashers is, like most of today’s comedies, a one joke pony. The joke is that these guys crash weddings. Seems simple enough, and that is the problem. The joke gets old half way through the movie and the second half of the movie is as boring as the first half is funny.

The next thing Wedding Crashers suffers from is that it is exactly two hours long. A comedy that is two hours long? Why? Back in the golden age of comedy from around the 1930’s to the 1970’s not even the masters like Mel Brooks and the Marx Brothers pretended they had enough material to last for a two hour movie. This pretentious type of film making killed Wedding Crashers. If the movie had been between 80 and 90 minutes long it very well could have stood the test of time as a comedy classic, the first half is that funny. But it persists in dragging on and on until you honestly begin to forget what happened in the beginning of the movie and you start to notice that you are running out of popcorn. There is no reason to extend a movie that long other than a director has too much power and to much ego. The last 30 minutes of Wedding Crashers is boring and in some ways offensive. The movie makers of today need to go back and learn the art of minimal expression just like the great movie makers had back in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Back then a movie was only as long as it needed to be and you rarely felt like a movie was too long or too short. Even the epic The Ten Commandments feels just right at 3 and a half hours.

Will Ferrell ceased being funny after the 2004 movie Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy. Prior to Anchorman Ferrell’s comedy appeal was suspect at best when he started making feature films and became obvious that his strength was in sketch comedy like he did on Saturday Night Live. But Ferrell had some bright moments in feature films after leaving Saturday Night Live but those moments faded and then fizzled after Anchorman. By the time Ferrell shows up in Wedding Crashers the movie has already dragged on way too long and then Ferrell adds his death touch by showing up. His character is boring and the jokes made through his character are offensive and serve no purpose. Wedding Crashers had such potential but it buried that potential in pretentious film making and the comedy killer that is Will Ferrell.