ISN’T IT ROMANTIC had the potential to be something that could really poke fun at, yet homage all the romantic comedies we’ve seen time and again and still get made to this day. While it wasn’t the disaster I thought it would be, I don’t feel like it tried hard enough to poke fun at everything and instead at times fell into more of the pit falls that hurt those kinds of films. In the end, I feel like it was a decent one time watch, and that maybe someone down the line will watch this film, and decide to make a better one. I have to admit, it wasn’t as agonizingly dumb like the stupid parody films we’ve gotten in recent years like Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet The Spartans, Superhero Movie, Disaster Movie or anything like that, but it should’ve dug deeper into the subject matter and maybe given us a film more akin to Airplane! or Top Secret! instead.

If you live in a tree and don’t know what Isn’t It Romantic? is about, it is supposed to take the romantic comedy formula, spin it on it’s head, make fun of it, and come to a more realistic conclusion based more in reality. Rebel Wilson stars as an architect that just can’t catch a break in her job or love life, and after she bangs her head in a mugging incident, she wakes up in a world where everything adheres to the rom-com rules of the movies. The movie outright make fun of those films by having Wilson’s character be bleeped whenever she tries to say the F word, and not showing the sex between her and Liam Hemsworth characters, and it also has nice little subtle touches that I enjoyed more such as pretty flowers being absolutely everywhere and little Easter Egg road signs about engagement and marriage.

The movie tries to be more realistic when it isn’t in the fantasy world, such as stating that New York really is not that great to look at and smells of shit, but it doesn’t take it to that realistic level it needed to be at for me. Her little thing with Adam Devine in the real world still reeks of movie cliched dialogue and tropes and the ending, ending (going into the credits) really missed the opportunity to be more realistic. It instead just threw the pages of the screenplay up into the air and just shrugged off everything that it tried to establish before and decided to have a non charming song and annoying dance number. The whole film needed to have more scenes like when Rebel Wilson is about to try on a bunch of clothes for a date with Hemsworth and she goes on about not doing a “trying on clothes” montage, and then THEY DON’T DO THE MONTAGE! More of that would’ve been fantastic, but the jokes don’t hit as often as they should.

I’ll also give the film some props: this is the first film where I wasn’t annoyed at all by Rebel Wilson’s character. She still does her improve that somehow works, but it is now all incorporated into a normal character that the audience can relate to. Rebel Wilson isn’t just screaming lines in this and spouting off nonsense, it looks like she wanted to take this comedy a little bit more seriously to branch out of her type cast of the not so pitch perfect films she has done before. Adam Devine proves that he is still an underrated comedian and should be in more things and Liam Hemsworth proves that, like his brother, he should be in more comedies to stretch out his talent. One actress I did not like in this was Priyanka Chopra. I’ve never thought she was a good actress, and in this her improv skills are…lacking, for lack of a better and meaner word. She has always been just eye candy to me and in this she doesn’t show anymore range. She was awful in this as much as she was in Baywatch. I never watched Quantico, but I’m guessing her career is going be way of Kate Hudson more than anything.

Anyway, my wife liked this film more than I did, and I have a feeling most women will eat this up, but to me, I watched it once, and that was enough. I’m thanking God it wasn’t a disaster like other parody films we have gotten in the recent age, but wished it was smarter like some parody films we got a long long time ago now. There just wasn’t enough poking fun of rom-coms for me. It should’ve been a joke a second, when it was more like a joke every couple of minutes. The run time of this is extremely short, only 84-86 minutes, and parts of it felt slow, which should not happen in films like these. Anyway, I just look at this as a little bit of a missed opportunity, but I didn’t want to rip my eyes or ears off. I think you’ll like it more if you are familiar with the movies it makes fun of. Also, if you do see it, see it on a romantic date… you might get a little more out of it than if you go alone.