'27 Dresses' (G)(out of four)

There's no argument that the subliminal message in the movie "27 Dresses" is not a good one for women. If there are no prospects for you to be married, you might as well hide in your house and eat a quart of double chocolate fudge ice cream for the rest of your life.

But if you can push the 1950s notion out of your head and enjoy the film's sunny side and the stellar performances by a great ensemble cast, "27 Dresses" is a pleasant walk down the aisle.

Meanwhile it's difficult to believe that Katherine Heigl would ever have a hard time finding a man who wouldn't want to marry her, or that she wouldn't dump an aging Edward Burns for hot former Versace model James Marsden, but it's the movies, remember?

Heigl plays Jane, a 30-something singleton who lives for weddings. She loves planning them and attending them no matter what piece of awful garb she's forced to wear as part of a wedding party. We're told that the ceremony bug bit Jane when she was a flower girl after saving a torn bridal dress with a hair ribbon.

A magazine assistant by day, Jane's datebook is bursting at the seams, as is her closet because of the magnitude of her addiction. In her small Manhattan apartment she manages to devote an entire closet to a rainbow of bad bridesmaid dresses. She also collects clips from the wedding announcements in the fictional New York Journal.

At one of two weddings she's attended on the same day, Jane takes a tumble. Kevin, who attends weddings for a whole different reason, is the closest man to her to scrape her off the floor. The audience knows that he's the writer of the soft, sensitive wedding announcements Jane reads in the newspaper, but when it comes to weddings, Kevin is cynical and snarky. Of course, the plot weaves itself even thicker when Jane discovers that the jaded Kevin is able to create such beautiful prose when he speaks so tartly about the rites of marriage.

For Kevin, Jane's addiction is his ticket out of the softer side of news and he decides to pitch an investigative story to his editor that he hopes will give a lift to his career, even if it's at the expense of his subject. That is until he starts to fall for her.

There's more to the story when Jane's model sister falls in love with George (Edward Burns), Jane's boss and the man she's been in love with for years. Then there's the mix-up when the story about Jane gets published early, and, of course, all the jokes and wisecracks about all of those hideous bridesmaids dresses and the just-as-abominable weddings.

For anyone who still has a dress at the back of her closet that a best friend made them wear in a wedding, and still holds onto the belief that with a little nip and tuck the dress will be wearable one day, "27 Dresses" is a great fit. Sure, it's predictable, clichéd and at times, over the top, but isn't that what weddings are all about? Of course, just like weddings, too, in the end, love prevails.