Beautiful Disaster isn’t the best movie to have ever been told, but it didn’t take itself too seriously and the leads had good chemistry. The sequel, however, has no reason to exist, besides maybe allowing the cast to enjoy some kind of vacation. Travis (Dylan Sprouse) and Abby (Virginia Gardner) were in Vegas the last time we saw them. The film opens on the pair having marriage counselling with a priest, and we’re taken back in time to the events that led them to this moment.
Why are they married? It’s basically a What Happens in Vegas scenario – they get so drunk that they end up marrying each other. That leaves them in a conundrum. Their relationship is basically a disaster, and now they’ve added the complication of marriage on top of it. They’re only 19 and still in college – should they stay married or get their marriage annulled? It’s hard to believe, but that’s really all the movie’s about. The entire movie is Abby weighing her options and whether she wants to stay married to Travis.
The problem is, how can they decide whether their marriage is worth keeping if the entire movie is basically their honeymoon? There’s also a scoreboard that pops up whenever Travis screws up, which is I guess how things are done in a marriage – we keep score. I know it’s part of the camp, but unlike the first film, the humour falls flat here. What’s worse is that it seems like Abby and Travis don’t even like each other in this film. There were more genuine moments between them in Beautiful Disaster. In this movie, they’re either getting extremely mad at each other over inane things, or having the most cringeworthy sex scenes.
The characterisation is also weaker in this film – it’s as if Gardner and Sprouse have forgotten how to play Abby and Travis. Even though I didn’t think Sprouse could be the bad boy dreamboat he was supposed to play in the first film, he at least made it work previously. In this film, however, it feels like he’s been married for a few years, he and Abby don’t even seem like college students anymore. All the other characters are deadweight in this film; their friends Shepley (Austin North) and America (Libe Barer)’s relationship isn’t worth keeping track of, Travis’ brothers show up for nothing more than some fun in the sun, and there’s that Benny (Rob Estes) dude from the first movie that’s bringing nothing to the table here besides yelling a whole lot.
There’s also this Miguel character who feels like he’s there to fit the mold of the second lead they usually get in movies like this. The sequels to these YA romance movies always adds the complication of a new love interest, like To All the Boys: P.S. I Love You and The Kissing Booth 2. However, we already know Miguel is the priest from the beginning of the movie, so he fits the part but isn’t there to add to the complication. Miguel and Abby’s scenes together should have gone to Abby and Travis, because that’s what we need to see in a romantic movie, our leads having heart to heart conversations.
But that’s not Beautiful Wedding, a rom-com that fails to bring either element to the mix, and just ends up being a snoozefest.
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