Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

06 September 2008

What Happens in Vegas, dir. Tom Vaughan (2008)

NIKKI says:
It was an impulse buy, like getting a Freddo at the supermarket. You don't need a Freddo, you had no intention of buying a Freddo, but when you see it there in its shiny Crunchie-flavour-emblazoned wrapper, suddenly you've just got to have a Freddo.

What Happens in Vegas was just sitting on the counter, looking like candy. So we did it. I think the conversation went like this:

Me: "What Happens in Vegas"
Steve: "Absolutely not. But okay."

See, he was feeling it. Sugar-craving.

UH... I guess I'd better talk about the movie. Well, it was everything I expected and so much more. Predictable, tacky, slapstick-y, unrealistic, over-the-top, and entirely un-romantic. Still, I had a few hearty laughs, courtesy of Rob Corddry and Zach Galifianakis as the weird best friends.

Let's look at each of these issues individually shall we?

PREDICTABLE: Obviously, they fall in love. But this was worse. Not only did they hook up at the end, but they did so at the very place we expected, with speeches to give each other that Steve and I practically mimed along with them. I understand there are only seven stories, but you can individualise them a little, can't you? Cameron and Ashton were such carbon copies of every other romantic comedy duo that their journeys here are laid out from the start. The movie is just a by-the-numbers path to that lighthouse.

TACKY: Cameron doesn't want to eat popcorn that's flavoured with the sweat of Ashton's ball sack. That's her worst line since "I swallowed your cum!" in Vanilla Sky. And as funny as it was to see Ashton peeing in the sink, well... Ashton pees in the sink. This is the depth of these characters. I hate you because you stink and leave the toilet seat up, not because you show any sort of human complexity whatsoever.

SLAPSTICK-Y: The couple argues by throwing tomatoes at each other. They have an all-out Three Stooges-like war through NYC, pushing each other around and slipping over. It's meant to be really funny, only it isn't. And Cameron falls all over the place, which was cute when she was younger. Now, at, like, 40 or however close to that she is, kinda looks odd and pathetic.

UNREALISTIC AND OVER-THE-TOP: A judge forces the two to make something of a drunken wedding in Vegas or they lose their money? It was a drunken wedding in Vegas, why should they be expected to care at all about each other? Why not agree to separate and split the money? And then they go on to fight and bicker for the time they have to pretend to love each other where they should have just agreed to live together in some kind of harmony until the end of the agreed upon period and just split the money then. So many people read this script, and still, it got made. Boggles the mind.

ENTIRELY UN-ROMANTIC: Young and spunky Ashton works in a role like this. Older, sinewy Cameron does not. Kate Hudson maybe -- someone fresh, who should be in that phase of her career where she's falling down for a man. Cameron is way past it. And her face is so tanned that any freshness left there has disappeared behind years of Malibu-roasting. I didn't see this couple as anything but conveniently thrown together for name value. They thought we wouldn't notice Cameron being six years older than Ashton when he's married to someone nearly 15 years older than himself in "real" life. Sorry, filmmakers -- it was just as weird.

So, there you have it. A play-by-play of this film's faults. Now, to conclude, the funniest line in the movie:

Zach: "Do you even know how to drive an automatic?"

Ninety minutes of lame for that? It's like the unnecessary but exciting candy bar amid all the boring weekly groceries.

2/5