While getting married isn’t an easy decision for everyone, neither is leaving someone at the altar. That’s what Natalie Burn‘s character is faced with in the movie Til Death Do Us Part. Of course, walking away from her fiancé is trickier than usual in this blood-soaked genre mashup. To say she’s in for a world of hurt now is an understatement.
Trying to survive your wedding day sounds like overdramatic bridezilla behavior, but for the protagonist in Til Death Do Us Part movie, making it out alive is no exaggeration. No, this Bride (Burns) — the movie’s characters don’t have proper names, only identifiers — is literally at risk of dying as she walks away from her soon-to-be ex (Ser’Darius Blain). Director Timothy Woodward Jr. and screenwriters Chad Law & Shane Dax Taylor‘s movie is told out of order after the outset; the engaged couple seems happy enough on their trip to Puerto Rico. All is well until it’s clearly very not.
The now-askew story finds The Bride driving away from her picturesque wedding, vaguely explaining to The Groom over the phone why she’s ducking out at the last minute. While The Groom seems concerned and sympathetic, looks are deceiving. Also, his groomsmen are a great deal less understanding, and they intervene when asked not to. The Best Man (Cam Gigandet) and his cohorts pay The Bride a visit in hopes of keeping her still until The Groom can come and have a one-on-one chat.
The setup for Til Death Do Us Part is admittedly great, and had it followed through on that basic premise, this movie might have become an action-horror darling. Instead, it’s a wildly uneven party where the invitation promised one thing and served up something else. That’s not to say the pledged mayhem isn’t there; the movie does deliver some violent set pieces. Yet no matter how aggressive these intermittent moments of mortal combat and gore are, they lack the kind of force that leaves a mark. The brutal interactions between The Bride and The Grooms’ cavalry get the adrenaline pumping for a few seconds, but they’re not enough to make the movie itself interesting or memorable.
On the bright side, Til Death Do Us Part is a wonderful vehicle for Natalie Burn. She shines the most whenever she becomes the bruising bride who kicks and chainsaws her way to freedom. Burn also holds her own in the movie’s relatively more peaceful parts, and she gives her character a semblance of depth even when the material she’s working with runs on the shallower side. And after biding his time and possibly feeling eclipsed by his groomsmen, Ser’Darius Blain gets his turn to do some damage.
The big draw here is undoubtedly the violence, but then there are these overlong bits of drama that neither the director nor writers can pull off smoothly. A tighter runtime with less bloat would have benefitted the whole ceremony as well. Ultimately, Til Death Do Us Part has cold feet about the kind of movie it really wants to be.
Tales from the Paulside 
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