Movie Review #21 Couples Retreat

Couples Retreat (2009) Vince Vaughn, Kristen Bell Directed by Peter Billingsley

This movie is fine, there are nice scenic landscapes, beautiful people, and some (just a touch) of comedy gold. It is with much sadness though that I noticed one thing that will drive this rating way down...you see I previously did not know before catching it in the opening credits that this film was written by the great duo of Jon Favreau & Vince Vaughn (if you have not seen Swingers yet...for the love of all mankind come over and watch it). You see Swingers a film written by these two was written in a weekend and although a film called Made (they also wrote together) did not live up to the Swingers bar...it was still within reason to expect some semblance of greatness from a film that these two wrote. This movie is not great, it has some opportunities for hilarity and it too often whiffs on those chances.

The film is about four couples who are off on an island therapy vacation. The lead in to the actual vacation is silly so we will skip that, once they get there they are met by Marcel (a mostly wasted Jean Reno...who we still love from The Professional) and Ctanley with a C ( the funny but again wasted Peter Serafinowicz) who instead of letting the couples party in the island paradise that is Eden, force them into a variety of couples therapy activities. Seems simple enough and yes there are some funny moments, but with a premise like this there really should have been more um...funniness. Jason Bateman plays straight man Jason and his wife Cynthia is played by a pretty Kristen Bell...Jon Favreau plays Joey who frequently cheats on his MILF wife Lucy played by the always watchable Kristen Davis, Faizon Love play plays Shane (who dates a 20 year old after his wife left him) and Vaughn and Akerman play Dave and Ronnie. They all have a few moments, but in the end it is a lazy film that should have been better. Even great role players Ken Jeong (yeah the small penis guy from The Hangover) and John Michael Higgins (The one who sings Owner of a Lonely Heart in The Break-Up, a much better film) gets almost nothing to work with here. I don't know if it was all cut out in the editing room, but to me it really felt like this film was supposed to be better. Maybe Favreau is just treading water in between his next Iron-Man film and maybe Vaughn is just fine with collecting a paycheck and showing up for films as Vince Vaughn now...for the sake of their fans I hope the next time they make a film they put forth a little more effort...nobody is going to be jumping up and down for The Next Four Christmases or Fred Claus 2...c'mon guys you wrote swingers for god sakes.

(The Shawshank Scale 1-10) Well it is watchable, and even a lazy Favreau/ Vaughn comedy is still a Favreau/Vaughn comedy, I guess the combination of watching the pretty wives, and the somewhat funny banter of the old men is enough to warrant a 5.5 for this film on the scale...SPOILER ALERT!...because I will predict a pretty major drop off from its 35 million dollar opening weekend I feel ok in giving away the movies best line, because it fits with my review..."I guess there's really not much to say"(Vaughn says after facing a worker who witnessed his son pee in a showroom toilet at a home store) Yeah Vince there isn't much to say about this film...A standard comedy nothing more...if you see it bring someone you will want to make out with.

Food For Thought: Didn't eat anything at this film but try this: one part Red Bull, one part cran, one part V Vodka, splash of Triple Sec, Splash Midori, lime garnish...I call it The Chaos Cosmo (please wait for me to turn my back before you make fun of the name). Up next for Vaughn is a couple of mysterious films called Sunny and 68 and The Realtor s. For Favreau there is of course next summers first...Iron Man 2 and Bateman has a film titled Paul about some comic book geeks co-starring Seth Rogan. For the ladies Kristen Bell has When in Rome a cute looking romantic comedy where she plays leading lady, for Akerman there's Elektra Luxx, a comedy about a pregnant porn star, and finally Kristen Davis who of course has the much anticipated SATC2...or for the guys...um Sex and the City 2...OMG!!!