***
Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, Edward Burns
Directed by Anne Fletcher
Rated PG-13
Opens Friday
Romantic comedies don’t come much more by-the-numbers than 27 Dresses. It begins and ends with a wedding, the inevitable lovers initially hate each other in order to have sexual tension, and, by the end, all conflicts and rivalries are resolved without a single sore feeling. I could go on to list a number of examples greater than the number of titular outfits the leading lady tries on in the film’s dress-up montage—yet another rom-com cliché.
But this story of the eternal bridesmaid finally getting her day begins to grow on you, courtesy of Heigl’s effortless charm. The script spends a little too much time in its first half being cruel to Heigl’s Jane, in order to win sympathy that we would have awarded her for the mere absence of her smile. She finds herself planning her sister’s wedding to the man she herself loves, with predictable results. But by the time the film gives her some quality time with wedding-announcement writer Kevin (Marsden, no longer playing second fiddle as he did in Enchanted and X-Men), the chemistry is intoxicating enough that we don’t see some of the requisite reversals and temporary heartaches coming. You’ll enjoy the “Benny and the Jets” sing-along scene too much to complain that movies like this always have a sing-along scene.