User Reviews

"Qu'est-ce qu'on a tous fait au bon Dieu?" or "Serial (Bad) Weddings 3" is a new French movie, well new everywhere except France I guess, and this is the third installment to the franchise that elaborates on Monsieur Claude and his family that has grown pretty big since the first film from 2014. I think there was a five-year break between the first two films and now only two years between this second and third here. At the start of my review you can see that the French and English/international title really could not be any more different and as I am from Germany and watched the German dub, let me say that the German title is also once again different, so they took their creative freedom with translations. The German title states the name of the male protagonist. The movie runs for under 100 minutes, including credits, and the writer and director is Philippe de Chauveron again. He also worked on the previous two films and his co-writer here is Guy Laurent, who is also not new to the franchise. As for the cast, it is all about the ensemble. The one name leading this franchise is Christian Clavier and the many, many other performers here are no really big names or at least not names that have made an impact outside France. As for Clavier, he is surely still most known for playing Astérix, but Monsieur Claude is probably not super far behind anymore now that this is already a trilogy and I wonder if they will keep going and make it a quadrology at some point. I personally would say that it is not too necessary. I remember really enjoying at least one of the two previous films, I think it was the second, the one from 2019, but this one here is definitely inferior in quality. This does not mean it is bad or poor or anything. There are also some okay moments, but also some glaring weaknesses. I will get to those later on.

As I already stated, I am from Germany, so it was kinda interesting to see a German character in here and how he was depicted in a French film. I wonder if anybody was offended. I definitely wasn't, even if I must say it was not the best writing in the world when it comes Hägele's character here. Also an actor with a pretty interesting body of work. But anyway, you could kinda guess that in the end this character would not really be liked by too many anymore. It just was not 100% clear why. If he was really interested in the daughter? Or the mother or what other reason there could be? But one thing very clear was that he is definitely not in it because he actually thinks the paintings are brilliant. He kinda reminded me of one character from Cabaret 50 years ago. If you have seen that one, you surely know what I mean with that. Anyway, the strength with these films was previously that they were really not scared of going all-in in terms of elaborating on conflicts between cultures. The gentle way to put it. I admired this fearlessness. A film like this would never get made here in Germany where everything and everybody has to be so politically correct and if they are not, they will get rigorously ousted by the mainstream and general public and there is a chance your career is over. Not so in France luckily. That is why I laughed a lot with the second film. Here I laughed as well, but it is all a bit in decline. There are moments the Israel-Palestine metaphor that ends with a hug, the question if Jesus can be black or has to be black even, the issue with all Asians looking alike to non-Asians etc. But it is never truly laugh-out-loud material. Nonetheless, I did like it when we see this flashback how the two protagonists sit with the wrong family there in Asia. That was funny. Not gonna lie. One of the funniest sequences of the film.

However, as good as this may have been, there was one area where the film really hit rock-bottom and as open as it may be in terms of conflicts between people from different areas of the world, as uninspired it was in terms of depicting male-female relationships. It was all the same literally, every single couple. The guys usually mess up or cause a bit of havoc with their shenanigans and the women have to restore order again. Or be patient, caring and solve the issues their husbands are creating. I cannot even say the amount of times when the women said something like that to their men in here like that they will never change or should pull themselves together. Or just shook their heads at the way their husbands behaved. I am sure this was intended as strong female character writing for literally every female, but it was no such thing the way it turned out. It got all kinds of wrong. The exaggeration aspect also cannot justify it the way it somehow justified scenes like the opening when Claude just wants his quiet and keeps running into every son-in-law he has, which was not realistic, but entertaining. I mean the core idea is still that we like the men and pretty much every character here, but this would also be unthinkable here in Germany with the protagonist and for example what he says to the Israeli dude on the boat it was I think. New additions also felt a bit bland, like the Arab's parents with the father who loves rock music or the conflict that he sacrificed his career for his child and this conflict is also randomly solved in the end. Like a miracle. Same applies to the serious conflict between the parents of the Jewish guy. Also magically solved after they were heading towards a divorce before that. A divorce would never happen in this franchise. It's not as daring as Curb Your Enthusiasm for example. But that's another story. Claude of course would somehow really not have had any problem with a divorce for one of his daughters. There is some talking about that it could happen to the one who is married to the Chinese fella, but this is also just a brief break between the two there and the daughter says she loves him.

Oh, as for the Chinese guy we also have a little bit of talking about how he could be from any Asian country and it would always be the same and the taking photo idea of course also had to be included in the sense that all Asians do it. As for the title, the French title, I think they always included the titles as quotes at one point in the previous films when a character asks a rhetoric question what they have done to God to deserve this and this is the case here too. This time, it is the mother who asks said question. You can see her sitting on the left on the movie poster. She asks it when they are all in jail toward the end. This was not my favorite scene, but in general I thought the first half was better than the second half here. The second had some truly weak moments here and there and this especially applies to the scene when the women go out clubbing and drinking. Look at the way they talk to their husbands there, but we are definitely led to believe it is okay and they are allowed to do so, but the other way around, the men would be pure evil and disrespectful. Misancdric movie this is. Yeah, this scene at the club was a travesty, especially with the DJ there. Absolutely awful depiction. More of a parody there than a movie. Admittedly, the only one who kinda held this part together was the fella outside who was in charge of dedising who may get in and who has to stay outside. As for the biblical play, it was also not a bright moment. What happened outside was even worse than what happened inside. I mean it seemed like some huge controversy with so many (racist?) protesters, but inside there was almost nobody except all the characters who are part of this film, as if it took place in some village and nobody knew about it.

Another thing I did not really like was that some characters had almost no impact at all. This refers to some of the daughters. I mean it is a pretty big cast, but literally they are just there and doing nothing and the actresses have nothing to work with here. A bit of a pity. I surely would have loved some more interesting elaboration there instead of for example the plot with the Asian mother who keeps walking away. This added absolutely nothing and wasn't funny either. On a side note, it was a bit sad that Monsieur Claude's pretty stunning daughters now have lost a bit of their charms too and are rather memorable for bullying their men. I am also talking about the one I remembered really pretty in the earlier film(s) and now she looks more like Sarah Paulson. Honestly, this film is almost an advertizing to stay single I'd say. I would not really wanna change with any of the male characters in here. In the best case (for them), they are just depicted as weak, in the worst case... oh well. You will know it when you see it. But they cannot do any right. I also did not really get why the Israeli dude's parents would not sleep in the yurt if it was their son who brought it. I think it was him or at least he said it's a nice place to spend the night and honestly, I also don't understand the anger. I'd love to try it out. So yeah this was also still funnier in the first half, just like the idea of the conflict that the African man did not read Claude's book. Otherwise, except the book store visit, this was a messed-up plot inclusion too. No matter if we are talking about the idea he bought all the books himself or how he burns them, it was all somewhat messy and should have been left out completely. They really struggled with giving Clavier's character something here. This was not it. Not good. Other than that, he only had his blindness that the German dude was adoring his wife. The derogatory comment there was also not really deep, but started it all. Admittedly the balloon flight in the end was okay. This was back to what the franchise does best and this time the disabled got their share. But with charms nonetheless. No real discrimination or anything. I give this film a thumbs-up and positive recommendation, but it was close. Not necessary to make a fourth film unless de Chauveron manages to step things up again.

I was looking forward for the sequel. Waited almost a year and now this. It's all about the parents who are a mess and there is none of the french charming humor whatsoever. Odile is now another actress and I can't handle it. There is a weird german art collector which is tooo much and over the top! 🙄 The acting quality is low this time. And I hate how much they want to keep up with all the zeitgeist, being woke dilemma but a the same time are sooooo racist. It was funny in part 1 and 2 but now it's embarrassing. Looooooved the first 2, but this one is bad. Not funny just annoying. 💔 I wish I could get my money back.