At the Movies: 'The Wedding Planner'

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Jennifer Lopez's ``The Wedding Planner'' arrives in theaters to spread an age-old kernel of wisdom about love and devotion: No matter how good a person

Thursday, January 25th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Jennifer Lopez's ``The Wedding Planner'' arrives in theaters to spread an age-old kernel of wisdom about love and devotion: No matter how good a person you're with, keep on looking, because there's bound to be someone better.

That's the upshot of this factory recipe, vanilla confection of a romance, which works oh so hard to make everyone in it oh so likable that at times the audience is going to feel oh so nauseated. Moviegoers will fix their sympathy (or apathy) on both the blandly pleasant women involved in this prenuptial love triangle, and so will respond with dissatisfaction (or apathy) at the forced, nonconfrontational manner in which one of them ultimately gets the guy.

Lopez plays Mary Fiore, a crackerjack wedding planner whose own love life is about as interesting as the Scrabble tournaments that seem to be her only social activity.

Mary is introduced through a mildly engaging wedding scene where she marshals the forces â€” bride, ushers, minister, photographers â€” with military precision.

``The F.O.B. (father of the bride) is MIA!'' Mary barks into a headset as she rushes off to hunt him down.

Through an uninspired bit of slapstick, Mary is rescued from a potentially lethal accident by her perfect man, Steve Edison (Matthew McConaughey), a pediatrician who shares her immediate attraction.

After an enticing evening together, Mary's romantic bubble bursts when she learns that Steve is engaged to bright, perky Fran Donelly (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras), an Internet food marketer whose wedding Mary is organizing.

Groaner as that premise is, remember that many classic screwball comedies had story lines far more outrageous. They worked because of the madcap farce of it all, with manic action and rapid-fire dialogue zipping things along.

``The Wedding Planner'' might have worked better had it copped a bit of that frenzy. The movie is the directing debut of Adam Shankman, whose experience in comedy and choreography would seem to lend itself to that approach.

Instead, the movie plods along in sensitive New Age fashion, allowing Mary and Steve's affection to grow with all the banality of a really bad wedding toast.

Fran is depicted as quite the catch, someone ideally suited for Steve, which makes him quite the cad when his long-term feelings for her are shaken so easily.

The eventual resolution of this romantic entanglement is artificial and unsupported by the characters' relations earlier in the film. It's pasted â€” or clumsily hammered â€” into the script so no one will go home feeling badly for any of these people.

And it's all the more frustrating when for a brief moment, ``The Wedding Planner'' seemed poised to veer away from the standard Hollywood ending and try something nobler and truer to life.

Coming off last summer's dismal thriller ``The Cell,'' Lopez here reveals a hint of the charm she displayed in the crime caper ``Out of Sight.'' But McConaughey and Wilson-Sampras present a Ken-and-Barbie air that makes it all the harder to avoid thinking Steve and Fran were made for each other.

Tossed into the mix are Alex Rocco as Mary's father, who schemes to hook his daughter up with a nice Italian boy (Justin Chambers), Joanna Gleason and Charles Kimbrough as Fran's parents, and Kevin Pollak and Fred Willard in quick cameos. Except for Gleason, who offers a nice comic turn as a tippler, the supporting players add little to this skimpy wedding feast.

``The Wedding Planner,'' released by Sony's Columbia Pictures, runs 100 minutes and is rated PG-13 for language and some sexual humor.

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Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:

G â€” General audiences. All ages admitted.

PG â€” Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13 â€” Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

R â€” Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NC-17 â€” No one under 17 admitted.