Couples Retreat

Am I the only one who thinks Couples Retreat was just an excuse for the producers, director and stars to spend a few months having fun on the beaches of Tahiti? After seeing the results, I think it is pretty clear they did more partying than working, and still got paid millions of dollars. I wish I had a job where I could pull that off.

Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell star as Jason and Cynthia - a tightly wound, perfectionist married couple on the verge of getting divorced. They have had troubles conceiving a baby, which has caused all sorts of anxiety in their marriage, but they have a solution.

Jason and Cynthia want to take a trip to a vacation resort dedicated to helping couples reconnect. Of course, they get a special deal for everyone if all of their friends join in on a group rate package, but the rest of the gang isn't so interested in quality time.

When the other 3 couples join Jason and Cynthia, will the vacation end up helping their relationships or destroying them?

Will they explore some fun in the sun, or just explore their feelings?

Couples Retreat is supposed to be an ensemble piece, but director Peter "you’re going to shoot your eye out" Billingsley (yes, he was Ralphie in A Christmas Story) quickly transforms the movie into The Vince Vaughn Show, which could be the only reason to see the film.

Most of the men in Couples Retreat do what they do well in an attempt to keep us interested or, at the very least, help us stay awake. Vaughn is riffing and delivering his typical fast talking, hyperactive patter, which I still find funny even if it is the same character he plays in every movie. I hope he's still riffing, scatting and be-bopping when he's 90-years old.

Then, Bateman is the understated straight man who delivers the deadpan one-liners. Couples Retreat might not be the best movie he can land, but it keeps him in comedic shape for the Arrested Development movie. Meanwhile, Jon Favreau doesn't stink up the place, but he is a much better director than actor (this is the guy who directed Iron Man and Elf, as well as writing Swingers, so give him his props and encourage him to do more of that than this).

Yet, writer Dana Fox (along with co-writing help/hindrance from Vaughn and Favreau) reduces Couples Retreat to a compilation of predictable and worn out plots and jokes, while it also represents the old criticism of being a movie where all of the funny stuff has been used in the trailers and commercials. Even worse, Couples Retreat crashes and burns when they turn on the drama thinking the audience actually cares about these people. It's hard to care when they are such caricatures. By the time it starts getting dramatic, I was rooting for each one of them to get a divorce.

The characters played by Vaughn and Bateman are married to women who clearly are almost 15 years younger than they are, which is a bit distracting and unbelievable. Then, Faizon Love plays a character the size of a small whale who is a dating a 20-year old tart, but that is not possible unless you have David Letterman money, which, early in the movie, we learn he does not have (no amount of charm overcomes a gut of that size, trust me).

Sadly, when desperate, Billingsley and team turn to cute kids saying outrageous stuff. That's the equivalent of throwing in the towel and walking out of the ring.

Couples Retreat is rated PG-13 for sexual content and language.