"Couples Retreat" is all Vaughn, no vacation (Review)

Score:

I am posting this review late. If you already wasted your money on Couples Retreat, I'm sorry. If you loved it, you're either obsessed with Vince Vaughn, or may be content watching anything.

Before the rest of you spend $8.50 on a ticket to see Couples Retreat, please do me a favor: watch the trailer. The entire plot and almost every joke is in that two minute video. If you start rolling on the floor laughing, watch it again. If you're still dying for more, by all means, go see the movie. Just don't say I didn't warn you: it's boring.

Written by Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, it's another fix-your-marriage comedy, this time about four married 30-something couples who take a vacation to a couple's therapy island resort. Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) can't conceive and they're overly analytical. Dave (Vince Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Akerman) are doing pretty well, but get on each others nerves a bit. Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis) are high school sweethearts that can't stand each other anymore. Finally, Shane (Faizon Love) is on the outs with his wife and brings his 20-year-old girlfriend Trudy (Kali Hawk) along for the ride.

In the paragraph above, I've already spent far more time and care on these relationships than this movie ever does. Other than the fact that the script demands these couples have marital issues, I never get the sense that the characters have any real problems. The movie crawls along until the third act, when everything is resolved as plainly as an old TV sitcom. The only therapy needed is between these actors and their agents.

Couples Retreat is mostly concerned with tossing its cast into situational gags with no real payoff. In one scene, Vaughn is stuck in chum-infested water with small lemon sharks. He does his usual funnyman fast-talk to decent effect, but it lacks punch. The sharks are cheap computer generated effects and Vaughn proves he can't hold up a bland script on his own. In another scene, we see a computer generated butterfly--is it too expensive to get a real butterfly these days? I'm not sure how much was filmed on location, but the entire island feels as fake as the CGI animals; characters run through jungles straight out of the props closet and canoe across a sea that's clearly just a wave pool with a rain machine.

Still, I can name some corporations that are happy with Couples Retreat: Applebees, EA Games, and Budweiser. Though we never see one, Vaughn and others repeat word Applebees at least thirty times. EA's Rock Band gets an out-of-place segment in the film in which director Peter Billingsley proves that it's impossible to make people look cool while playing Rock Band. Also, Vaughn somehow finds a six-pack of Budweiser wherever he goes. 

There is one stand-out performance: Dave's (Vaughn) little son Kevin (Colin Baiocchi) is absolutely hilarious and adorable. Though he is only featured at the beginning and end of the movie, he steals every scene he's in, leaving me wishing the cameras had followed him and his grandfather instead of forcing us to retreat to "paradise."

Couples Retreat is about as good and funny as Year One, which also managed to squander a great cast and beautiful place. When this shows up free on TBS in a couple years, maybe give it a watch...if you're bored.

(Correction: They promoted Guitar Hero, not Rockband. Shows how good a job they did.)