Bride Hard is an example of an action-comedy that has everything and, at the same time, absolutely nothing.

Pitch Perfect co-stars Rebel Wilson and Anna Camp are the headliners, so one would assume their chemistry hasn’t changed since then. Filmmaker Simon West (Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Mechanic, Wild Card) has been brought on to direct, so one would assume he knows the language of an action flick. The film is also supported by seasoned actors like Stephen Dorff, Justin Hartley, and Academy Award winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers), so one would assume the audience would be impressed throughout. But, these collaborators are wasted on a film that doesn’t appear to be finished.

“Okay, let’s see the script,” I muttered during the first act. I usually internalize my suspicion that a bad movie is working with an unfinished script but Bride Hard shoots from the hip so often, the viewer wonders how much of Shaina Steinberg’s screenplay was left up to improvisation. Wilson is experienced with improvising dialogue but, also, this is where the movie blows its cover. Wilson, as secret agent Sam, is initially separated from the supporting cast, as she’s unexpectedly invited into an ongoing mission where she is required to locate stolen goods and fight off bad guys. Meanwhile, her friends – the wedding party Sam is the maid of honour for – sit at the bar and shoot the breeze. These scenes are unusually baggy, as actors talk over each other or state the obvious when male dancers try and keep the party going. This sloppy structuring is consistent in Bride Hard. The cast grows once the destination wedding is in motion, but the results are not any better. Everyone fails to stall for time or fill the space with anything that could be considered funny. A peculiar and partially censored group rendition of Khia’s infamous rap “My Neck, My Back (Lick It)” during a hostage situation is so laboured, nobody in the scene knows when to snuff out the gag.

Wilson tries to carry the film to no avail; mostly because her duties are assigned to the more physical elements of Bride Hard. Sam is stripped of her role as maid of honour but attends the wedding anyway only to be roped into yet another mission. The comedienne’s own issues are with West’s direction. Wilson stars in every action scene, which include chases, gunplay, and hand-to-hand combat. However, the broad choreography doesn’t mesh well with the close-up cinematography, resulting in fighters awkwardly manoeuvring around the camera and the actors being out-of-sync with each other. Wilson will take a large, slow swing towards a mercenary followed by the killer quickly collapsing.

The audience is never laughing or having fun while watching Bride Hard. We see a collection of uncoordinated large action fodder with very little to hold them together, and we’re suddenly growing nostalgic for Amazon Prime Video’s similar (and marginally less crummy) action-comedy Shotgun Wedding. While this is merely a guess, it appears as though the production had planned for the action portions but didn’t know how to assemble them into a story; leaving the responsibilities to Simon West and his clueless cast. How else can you explain why a high-octane airboat chase is intercut with atrocious chromakey effects for close-ups of Wilson and Camp facing off against the villain.

Whether you worked on the movie or are merely watching it, Bride Hard gives everyone a reason to object to it.

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Addison Wylie: @AddisonWylie