My Big Fat Greek Wedding / Muriel's Wedding / The Wedding Planner DVD Region 4

Romantic comedies don't come any more lighthearted than "The Wedding Planner." This winsome tale of woo about two wrong for each other couples delivers bouquets of cheers and tears without either humiliating its congenial cast or insulting audiences. Novice director Adam Shankman, previously a choreographer for films like "George of the Jungle," "Boogie Nights," and "Mission to Mars," transforms an old-fashioned "Pride and Prejudice" storyline with stock characters in cliché situations into a briskly-paced, modern day yarn.

"The Wedding Planner" boasts charismatic performances, witty repartee, and farcical horseplay that should offend few. Actress-turned-pop diva Jennifer Lopez snaps back from last year's abysmal, avant-garde, psychological chiller "The Cell" and displays a knack for sophisticated humor. Imagine "My Best Friend's Wedding" rewritten so that the heroine wins Mr. Right, and you have a good idea about what kind of antics abound in "The Wedding Planner." In the title role as Mary Fiore, Lopez plays the most sought after wedding consultant in San Francisco. Not only does she attract cream of the crop couples with big bucks to blow, but she also orchestrates her weddings with the same attention to detail that NASA observes during a shuttle launch countdown. Equipped with a microphone headset so she can talk to the best man throughout a wedding toast reception, Mary epitomizes perfectionism at its foremost. Nothing fazes this fastidious female. She never breaks a sweat solving problems. If the bride's father cannot face the prospect of giving up his daughter, Mary knows how to snap him into shape. If somebody's head blocks her wedding videographer's cameras, Mary dispatches an assistant to escort said 'big head' to another seat. If the bride herself develops cold feet, Mary restores the former's sagging confidence with a speech so intentionally corny that no woman could resist it. Woman marvel at her cool, imperturbable ability to stage these nuptials. They dream about the ultra-romantic life that Mary must surely live. Wrong! As a single, career-oriented, workaholic woman, Mary has few friends. Moreover, she hasn't dated in two years and dines at home along on covered dishes while she watches PBS-TV's "Antique Roadshow." According to Mary, some women marry while others plan marriages. She belongs to the latter category and maintains an apparent quasi-monastic lifestyle. Mary still smarts from having been abandoned at the altar. Consequently, she spends her free time cleaning her drapes and playing Scrabble with her Italian-immigrant father Salvatore (Alex Rocco of "Freebie and the Bean") and his geriatric friends at a nursing home.

While she is supervising the wedding-of-a-lifetime for wealthy Internet entrepreneur Fran Donnelly (Bridget Wilson-Sampras of "Mortal Combat") that will make her a partner in her boss's business, Mary has an unforeseen accident. Crossing a street, she snags one of her Gucci high heels in a manhole cover. Simultaneously, a taxi cab driver sideswipes a huge garbage dumpster. The leviathan dumpster lurches downhill toward our helpless heroine as she struggles futilely to extract her footwear. Pediatrician Dr. Steve Edison (Matthew McConaughey) knocks Mary out of the way of the runaway dumpster seconds before it would have creamed her. Mary faints, and Edison checks her into his kids' clinic and checks her out. Meanwhile, Mary's hilariously hare-brained assistant, Penny Nicholson (Judy Greer of "What Women Want"), rushes to see Mary after the clinic calls her. She nearly faints when she sees handsome Steve Edison. Playing matchmaker, scatterbrained Penny suggests that Steve join Mary and her for a movie at Golden Gate Park. At the last minute, Penny backs out, leaving our heroine with the charming pediatrician. They dance to an out-of-doors screening of "Two Tickets to Broadway" (1951) starring Tony Martin and Janet Leigh. During their dance, they come perilously close to kissing each other.

Of course, Mary walks on clouds until she discovers to her shock that Steve is none other than Fran's bridegroom! Ironically, Fran gets so bogged down in her own company's affairs that she convinces her new best friend Mary and her future husband Steve to coordinate the small details while she leaves town on business. Initially, Mary fusses at Steve for behaving so boorishly, but he soon overcomes her objections. He claims that he wasn't cheating on Fran when he saw the movie with Mary at the park. Neither can take their orbs off each other, until a conscientious Mary sends poor Steve packing. Our heroine refuses to destroy Fran's wedding. She regards Fran as her friend and valiantly shuts up the door in Steve's face. The recurring problem and part of the humor is that Steve keeps rescuing Mary from one accident after another until Steve realizes his impending marriage to Fran may spell doom. Meanwhile, Mary's sweet, well-intentioned father sets her up with another guy, Massimo (Justin Chambers of "The Musketeer"), a shy, hunky Italian immigrant who Mary met as a child when she spent a summer in Sicily. Massimo looks and acts like a woman's dream come true. Since she cannot marry Dr. Steve, Mary settles for Massimo in a justice of the peace ceremony.

Like those classic Spencer Tracy & Katherine Hepburn comedies of yesteryear, "The Wedding Planner" chronicles the inevitable twists and turns of the guy-gets-gal, guy-loses-gal, guy-wins-gal-back formula. Sentimental moviegoers will embrace this chaste, clean-minded but nevertheless entertaining matrimonial merriment. You've seen this kind of movie dozens of times, but an invigorating cast and agile scriptwriting provide it with enough fresh angles so "The Wedding Planner" doesn't seem as recycled as most second-rate romantic comedies. Director Adam Shankman keeps everything light and breezy when he isn't ridiculing various wedding ceremony customs.