“My big fat Greek Wedding” was first released in theaters independently in 2002, but has finally been released in Blu-ray to commemorate their 10th anniversary. It went on to be a box-office smash because of all the good publicity and word-of-mouth recognition the movie received. The movie is a romantic comedy about a middle-aged unwed dorky Greek lady ,named Toula Portokalos (Nia Vardalos), who desperately needs a change in her life and wants to find the man of her dreams. After being a waitress at her family’s Greek Restaurant all her life, Tould decides to go to college to learn more about computer. She goes through a complete transformation, starts working at her aunt’s travel agency, and falls in love and gets engaged to a handsome teacher named Ian (John Corbett). All is well in Toula’s life until her father, Gus (Michael Constantine), finds out she is marrying a “Non-Greek” and the hassles of being a part of her family and planning a wedding catches up with her.

While this movie was in theaters, back in 2002, I heard a lot of high praise and recommendations for this movie. I chose not to watch it then and I can see why I ignored the hype and skipped it altogether until now. This is a great movie if you love romantic comedies and wanted to get a different perspective on the Greek culture, but the only major elements of the movie I enjoyed were Toula and the music. Nia wrote the script and did a great job playing Toula because she tried to make the character more personal and relatable. As for everyone else in the film, it felt like there were too many people to remember and keep track of and the other characters ranged from tolerable to really annoying. As for the music, they did a great job of setting the mood and giving the movie a real Greek feel.
There were a lot of things I did not enjoy about this movie. For instance, the acting was mediocre, at its best, and the jokes were hit or miss, with a majority being the latter. Also, there were some scenes that could have been left and the actual wedding was only 15 minutes of the whole movie. Lastly, for a special edition, they did not include enough extras or bonus material, besides the deleted scenes, audio commentary, and behind-the-scenes featurette. I know fans of the movie would have liked to seen more about the film or at least justify having to buy the movie again. In closing, this was not as horrible movie, nor was it as great as everyone talked about in 2002. It was just not the right movie for me and for those reasons, I am giving this movie a “C-.”