Stars outshine 'Made of Honor'

By Kenneth Turan

May 2, 2008

(C) The greatest tribute Hollywood can pay to a film is to happily remake it while pretending to be doing nothing of the kind. Which is why what Made of Honor does best is remind you why My Best Friend's Wedding was so memorable.

Actually, that's not completely true. Made of Honor does star two first-rate romantic comedy leads, Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan, and it is always more than pleasant to experience their onscreen appeal. Which is part of the problem.

Because Dempsey's and Monaghan's characters, platonic best friends who have thus far avoided a serious relationship, are so obviously destined for each other that it takes even the tiniest air of doubt out of the will-they-or-won't-they equation.

It also places increased demands on the filmmakers to make the time until this couple realizes what everyone in the audience knows immediately move swiftly and pleasantly. Unfortunately, neither director Paul Weiland (City Slickers II) nor screenwriters Adam Sztykiel (who sold this as a spec script in 2003) and the more experienced rewriters, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan (Josie and the Pussycats, A Very Brady Sequel), are fully up to that task.

Made starts with a cute-meet 10 years in the past, with its protagonists still in college. Dempsey's Tom, already an obsessive Casanova, mistakenly gets into bed with Monaghan's Hannah, and she so adroitly puts him in his place that they immediately become the best of friends. Just like real life.

Cut to today's New York, where Tom, wealthy as only the proud inventor of the coffee collar for takeout cups can be, is such catnip to women that they all but throw themselves at his feet. Hannah, now an art restorer, watches this with practiced bemusement but wonders aloud about the future for a man who only says "I love you" to canines.

But just when, after prodding from the college buddies he still hangs out with, Tom starts to realize that Hannah might be the woman for him, fate steps in in the form of a business trip she takes to Scotland.

Hannah is gone for six weeks, and in that time manages to meet and get engaged to Colin (Kevin McKidd), a handsome Scotsman who is just about perfect. Not only is he charming and good-looking, but he's also a natural athlete, next door to royalty and the wealthy owner of the country's largest whiskey distillery.

And, as emphasized by one of Made's too-frequent excursions into feeble risque humor (the film was in fact re-edited to avoid an R), he is also, as they say, well-endowed physically. The only thing not to like about him, frankly, is that he's not played by Patrick Dempsey.

Unaware of Tom's change of heart (just as Dermot Mulroney was unaware of Julia Roberts' in My Best Friend's Wedding), Hannah asks him to be her maid of honor, helping her prepare for her happy day. Determined to sabotage this wedding from the inside, Tom agrees.

As noted, both Dempsey, expert in Enchanted, and Monaghan, who's brought a welcome spark to everything from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang to Gone Baby Gone, are very good at what they do, as is Sydney Pollack as Tom's much-married father. If you're in the mood for seeing a Lothario humbled by true love, you've come to the right place.

You may wish, however, that Made of Honor had given its stars more of interest to occupy their time. And ours.

>>>Made of Honor ( Columbia Pictures) Starring Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Kevin McKidd. Directed by Paul Weiland. Rated PG-13 for sexual content and language. Time 101 minutes.