Kate Hudson, left, plays Liv, and Anne Hathaway plays Emma, best friends trying to sabotage each other’s wedding plans in Bride Wars.

20th Century Fox / Claire Folger

Bride Wars could have been your typical cartoonish, early-winter wedding comedy. Although it certainly has moments like that, it’s not as wacky as most of its ilk. Guess the bad news is that it’s not much of a comedy either.

Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson play Emma and Liv, best friends since childhood, who have very different personalities: Liv (Hudson) is a self-centered Manhattan lawyer; Emma (Hathaway) is an accommodating middle-schoolteacher, but both always dreamed of June weddings at the Plaza Hotel. When their boyfriends pop questions at about the same time, the gal pals are thrilled to learn that New York’s finest wedding planner (Candice Bergen) can book them both into their ideal venue during that busy month.

But then an assistant screws it up and the weddings get scheduled at exactly the same time. For various reasons — some personality-based and nicely written by the screenwriters, who include Saturday Night Live’s Casey Wilson — neither woman will give up the date. This means the movie’s title.

Emma’s and Liv’s attempts to destroy one another’s big day are, of course, petty and silly: salon and spray-tan sabotage, sending irresistibly fattening gift boxes from the International Butter Club, etc. But what Bride Wars lacks in good jokes is almost made up for by a genuinely wicked spirit that director Gary Winick (13 Going on 30) encourages his leading ladies to go hell-bent for. Nasty as it gets, Winick somehow keeps Liv and Emma this side of despicable, if not wildly egocentric — so you probably won’t hate ’em even if you wouldn’t want to date ’em.

The gals’ backgrounds, individually and together, are filled in just enough to justify most of their behavior. And character growth, superficial as it is, nonetheless seems earned.

As for Bride Wars’ guy tolerability index: It’s pretty low.

There’s lots of squealing and shopping, but at least the latter sequences are over quickly. Bridezilla moments abound; did you even need to be told? If you wait around long enough, though, a hot-pants-wearing Hathaway rewards with a bachelorette party dance-off number. It’s hardly her Brokeback Mountain back-seat moment, but it’s still something to see.

***Bride Wars

Starring: Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson, Candice Bergen.

Rated: PG, contains profanity.