Director: Garry Marshall
Writer: Sara Parriott & Josann McGibbon & Audrey Wells
Cast: Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Joan Cusack, Hector Elizondo, Rita Wilson, Paul Dooley, Tal Carawan Jr., Tom Hines, Donal Logue, Christopher Meloni, Sandra Taylor

Runaway Bride is a shamelessly manipulative, slick, shallow, contrived piece of old fashioned, pre-tested, star driven Hollywood claptrap, and very welcome it is. I had a good time, and you probably will, too. As all the world knows, Runaway Bride is the long awaited re-teaming of Richard Gere and Julia Roberts with director Garry Marshall, nine years after their "Pretty Woman'' triumph.

This time, Roberts plays Maggie, who keeps spoiling her own weddings. Three times, the pretty Marylander has gone to the altar and then fled, once on horseback. We also see cute videos of her panic exits and the gaping grooms she leaves behind.

Wind of the bizarre serial of nuptial mishaps breezes to New York, where USA Today columnist Ike Graham (Gere) hears of the mysterious bride and is desperate for some copy. He takes the story down at a bar and whips out a column, only later to be fired at once by USA Today, in a fit of integrity worthy of Scientific American, discovers that Maggie jilted just three men instead of the seven reported by Ike.

Down but not out, and always looking far better than the tarnished, Ike gets hired by columnist Mike Barnicle to get the whole story. Ike then zips to Hale, Maryland.

In the perfect town, where Maggie is much liked and is also a running joke. Ike later finds out that Maggie's next victim is (Christopher Meloni) as football coach Bob, Maggie's latest dupe for bail-out, is a goner from the start but Ike is always the anointed one, destined to break the beauty's anxiety jinx.