Runaway Bride

In 1990, Gary Marshall created Pretty Woman and basically made a name for himself even though he was doing pretty well before. It was a love story based upon a stripper which had different love elements and was mostly surely the star vehicle film for Julia Roberts. Close to ten years after that, he considered doing a Pretty Woman 2. The film that would surely make money and have an audience because Pretty Woman with Richard Gere and Roberts was so very popular. Instead, he made Runaway Bride.

 Runaway Bride is the story of Maggie Carpenter a girl in a small town who literally ran away from the three weddings and who found a strange attraction in the news reporter in town, Ike Davis (Richard Gere), who wrote about Maggie's many wedding day antics.

As a person who never been married and far from it, the idea a bride running away from a wedding seems unlikely and just makes you not like the Maggie Carpenter character. Who could like a lady who's never certain about anything and who treats each different fiance like dirt? You can't even like Ike Davis who's does seem to be the better of the two but you do have to wonder as to why he is interested in Maggie. It's like when your best friend has that awful girlfriend who you don't like and she makes you like your friend a little less.

Runaway Bride does have star power with it leads but there are even better performances from the supporting cast. Joan Cusack as Peggy Flemming is the very loud, best friend of Maggie and they are the type of friends that get drunk every Saturday night. Paul Dooley plays Walter Carpenter, Maggie's dad and is maybe the only character you can like because he's likes to make fun of Maggie a lot. Christopher Meloni as Bob Kelly and Donal Logue as Priest Norris were the latest fiancés, in Maggie's trap and frankly you just feel bad for them. Even Hector Elizondo and Rita Wilson show up as a couple though there really is no point for them to be here.

The ending is beyond predictable and pretty unlikely but still Runaway Bride is your typical romantic film. Sure it's different and has all that talent going for it and it will find an audience with woman because what woman does not like weddings? That said Julia Roberts is a poor lead character that takes this downhill a little bit. I'm not really a fan of sequels but this movie from 1999 makes me wish for the Pretty Woman sequel that we never got. Instead, we just got this sappy junk.

2.5/5