Bride Hard (2025) Magenta Light Studios/Action-Comedy RT: 105 minutes Rated R (sexual references, some violence) Director: Simon West Screenplay: Shaina Steinberg Music: Ryan Shore Cinematography: Alan Caudillo Release date: June 20, 2025 (US) Cast: Rebel Wilson, Anna Camp, Stephen Dorff, Justin Hartley, Anna Chlumsky, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Gigi Zumbado, Sherry Cola, Michael O’Neill, Sam Huntington, Colleen Camp, Craig Anton, Remy Ortiz, Kristian Kordula, Jeff Chase. Box Office: $932,000 (US)
Rating: ***
I suppose it makes sense to watch a movie like Bride Hard in August. It’s the kind of low-level action-comedy that typically opens in the latter part of summer. The studio dumps it into theaters hoping it’ll make a few bucks now that it’s not going directly up against any of the big hitters of early summer. Unfortunately, it is going up against other low-level movies released by their studios with the same mindset. It’s a no-win situation because typically, none of them make a nickel.
All of this, of course, is academic. I didn’t see Bride Hard at the cinema. It didn’t open at my local multiplex this past June and I wasn’t up for a road trip. I figured it would hit streaming by August and I was right. I watched it at home on a Friday night. I heard all sorts of bad reviews on it, but I generally don’t take anyone else’s word on the subject of movies. I prefer to make up my own mind. As it so happens in this case, I disagree with my fellow critics. I rather enjoyed it. Sure, it’s dumb and formulaic, but somehow it works.
Directed by Simon West (Con Air, The Expendables 2), Bride Hard is a cross between Bridesmaids and Die Hard. A slimmed-down Rebel Wilson (Pitch Perfect 1-3) stars as Sam, the maid of honor for her best friend Betsy (Pitch Perfect co-star Camp) who’s about to take the plunge. The problem is Sam isn’t the most reliable person in the world. Her job is time-consuming to the point where Sam has missed a few crucial things (e.g. dress fitting, cake tasting). Even more annoying, she can’t tell anybody what she really does for a living. She’s a secret government agent. That would make any kind of personal relationship complicated.
The last straw for Betsy occurs when Sam has to leave the bachelorette party in Paris (moved there at the last minute) in order to retrieve a bioweapon from some baddies. Drunk and exasperated, Betsy announces her best friend since childhood is out as maid of honor and soon-to-be sister-in-law Virginia (Chlumsky, My Girl) is in. You’ve heard of Bridezillas? This woman is Maidzilla.
One of Sam’s colleagues (Cola, Joy Ride) urges her to attend the wedding anyway now that she’s been temporarily benched for going rogue one too many times. It’s being held at the groom’s family’s private island estate in Savannah. It’s a tense situation with Virginia proving she’s the queen of passive-aggressive with her treatment of Sam. It gets worse when Sam, feeling left out, flirts with the hunky best man Chris (Hartley, Tracker) at the rehearsal dinner. A close friend of the family, Virginia has had her eye of him for years.
The wedding day is fraught with drama with Betsy and Sam having a tiff just minutes before the ceremony. The emotional bride tells her friend to leave. Thankfully, she’s slow to depart. Wedding crashers show up in the form of a team of mercenaries led by Kurt (Dorff, The Gate). They’ve come not to celebrate the couple’s nuptials but to steal the gold locked in the family vault. It can only be opened with the family’s wedding rings. The thieves, armed to the teeth, take the entire wedding party hostage. Sam jumps right into action, taking down bad guys while trying to fix things with her best friend.
I’ve long held that Rebel Wilson deserves leading lady status. She’s proven this in movies like Isn’t It Romantic (2019), The Hustle (2019) and Senior Year (2022). In Bride Hard, she really gets to unleash her inner bad ass, but in a comedic way. She commands the screen like a pro as she deals with black-clad gunmen and a MOH from hell. She even has a bit of MacGyver in her, using an improvised blowgun to take Virginia down a notch.
Wilson receives ample support from Camp who shows she’s up to the challenge of helping to save her wedding day. Chlumsky, all grown up now (I’m crying here), is funny as an overgrown mean girl. The bridal party is rounded out by Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) and Gigi Zumbado (Heart Eyes) as sexed-up Lydia and pregnant Zoe. Along with Virginia, they’re a force to be reckoned with.
Dorff, all grown up too (crying harder), makes a pretty good bad guy, but he lacks the menace and slimy charisma of Alan Rickman. That’s fine; Bride Hard is supposed to be a comedy. Hartley shows he has big screen appeal as the cute guy who’s more than he seems. A deadpan Cola makes the most of her few scenes. Colleen Camp (Clue), one of the film’s producers and NO relation to Anna, is funny as the bride’s mother, married multiple times. Sam Huntington (Detroit Rock City) has his moments as the groom.
The action scenes, despite some obvious CGI, are capably executed. The plot is as predictable as they come right down to the traitor in the wedding party. The screenplay by Shaina Steinberg is right out of Action-Comedy 101. HOWEVER, there’s something to be said for a wedding-themed movie in which the bridal party goes commando (NOT that way!), wielding guns and swords in pursuit of freedom, justice and the exchange of vows.
I liked Bride Hard. It’s not a classic by any means, but it’s damn good for a film that has August release written all over it. I wouldn’t even mind seeing a Bride Hard 2. After all, Betsy’s first baby is going to need a godmother.
