Movie Review

THE WEDDING PARTY 2; Destination Dubai.

THE WEDDING PARTY 2, is Rom-Com sequel of The Wedding Party 1, a movie that features a host of actors and comedians, like: RMD, Shola Shobowale, Ireti Doyle, Patience Ozokwor, Chinwetalu Agu, Banky W, Alibaba, AY and the list goes on and on. The Elfike (EbonyLife, Filmone, InkBlot and Konga studios) film collective and Niyi Akinmolayan’s skillful directing merged up to create this star-studded, humor imposed movie.  

The Wedding Party is a tale of

the challenges that come with intertribal and international marriages. In this part, Nonso Onwuka (Enyinna Nwigwe), the elder brother of the groom in The Wedding Party 1, sparingly dates his British girlfriend, Deirdre Winston (Daniella Down), in the first part and accidentally proposes to her in this part. The large chunk of the movie goes on to show how the couple deal with the challenges that come with such unions.

The film is a true testimony that a star-studded movie cannot save a weak plot, because inasmuch as it featured almost everyone who is big in the media industry, the loopholes in the plot was ever more glaring, like: Why Alibaba and Shola Shobowale were even in the movie! They are the parents of The Onwuka’s second son’s wife (Yeah, we had to break it down for you see the irrelevance), so what business did they have in the deciding and planning process of the marriage of Nonso Onwuka, The Onwuka's first son? 

Then the lack of background story of almost all the characters: Nonso and Diedre’s love, Sakaa, Funny Bone, in fact, a lot of the characters were so unnecessary, they could have been chopped out of the movie and no iota of the message would have been lost. Finally, the little details: Why was Zainab Balogun made to muffle some Igbo words? She cannot speak Igbo fluently and that is okay, she should have just gone on to speak pidgin English, Yoruba or any other language she knows how to speak well.

Enough of the bad, the movie also had some good, like the cinematography. That angle was amazing. The impressive drone shots, appropriate lighting and exciting camera angles, spot on. I mean, check out the scene where Nonso and Banky W were discussing at the balcony, in Dubai, the camera man was just playing with our minds, having us wondering if they were actually in Dubai or if it was a background effect… we loved it!

Makeup and costume were just right, giving the characters that subtle yet expensive look that suited The Onwuka’s and Winston’s caliber perfectly.

Soundtrack was amazing. Seyi Shay’s Yolo, Timi Dakolo’s Medicine, Reekado Bank’s Ladies and Gentlemen and Kiss Daniel’s Sofa, could not have been used better in a movie that described the exact wordings of the song, like The Wedding Party 2.

Now, the characters:

The casting of this movie is exciting, funny and a whole lot unnecessary. With actors ranging from Shola Shobowale, who is always always a delight to watch and Ay the Comedian, whose character was totally unneeded.   

In The Wedding Party 1, Shola Shobowale expertly delivered her role and in this part, even though the plot did not require her character, she did the movie more good than bad. With her perfect execution of an overly helpful and never-can-be-intimidated character; her acting is simply raw and natural.

Enyinna Nwigwe is an actor no lady can fault; he is easy to the eyes. His physique, baritone voice, facial expression when he is under pressure, his makeup generally is thrilling. One question we have though is, why he has not been featured more movies?

Daniella Down, who played the character Deidre Winston, the bride in the movie, was sadly unimpressive. Her facial expressions were too bland for a bride who was willing to damn her royalty status to marry just another Nigerian. Perfect example was the part where Enyinna had to propose to her all over again in the presence of their whole family; there were several emotions to have been portrayed by her, embarrassment, fluster, ‘I am happy this minute is here again’, anger, disappointment, anyone! But no, she just stood there with tears in her eyes and face and with a little resistance, she accepted the ring. In fact, Somkele, a friend of the bride, was even more emotional than the bride herself.

Patience Ozokwo, an actress we respect so much, must have either been limited by her script or not sure who her competition was, because we saw her try and try and try, but she just was not able to nail herself a remarkable spot in the movie.

Writing my review of the movie Hakunde, we struggled with my assessment of Frank Donga’s acting. we know he is great at pulling off hilarious facial expressions, but we were not sure that was good enough to land a good acting role. Well, we slipped and blamed it on the theme of the movie, Hakunde (If you haven’t seen this movie, you cancheck out my review here, with that, I am sure you will relate.). And now, with his role in this film, we now see the light: Frank, sadly, struggles to pull of his roles as an actor, he should either stick to roles that need just facial expressions or take time out to learn the craft of acting before his audience gets too large and his flaws very visible. He is a great character and we are sure he can be explored in a number of ways.

 As always, we keep the best for the last, my man Michael de Pinna. He was the perfect, to the T, actor for the character Geoffrey Winston: A proud Briton who could care less about the black race, talk less of a wealthy Nigerian family like the Onwuka’s. Seeing him go against his will just for love was heartwarming. Watch this movie for him!

In summary, the movie is again, a star-studded and humor imposed one. On a scale of zero to five, we give this movie a TWO AND A HALF, because the glitz and glam of the movie is pleasing to the eyes but it feels like that is all there is to The Wedding Party 2, ‘Glitz and Glam’. We recommend this movie to you if you like glitz and glam in movies, or you like guys that are pleasing to the eyes (Eyinna) or you simply want to see what Banky W and his Wife look like as married couples.

If you are willing to watch it for the third reason, let us quietly remind you that movies are simply make believes. #LOL 

Go, see the movie, have fun and tell us what you feel about it in the comment section below. Hopefully, the next time we go see a movie we can get your verbal reaction of what you think about the movie #Wink

Full Cast

Adesua Wellington

Banky W

Eyinna Nwigwe

Frank Donga

Ireti Doyle

Richard Mofe Damijo

AliBaba

Somkele Iyamah

Ikechukwu

AY the Comedian

Seyi Law

Wofai Fada

Saka

Daniella Down

Michael de Pinna

Funny Bone

Elenu

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……….Talk2urHommie……….