CNS Movie Review: What Happens in Vegas

What Happens in Vegas

By Harry Forbes
Catholic News Service

NEW YORK (CNS) -- In case you were wondering about that title, "What Happens in Vegas" (Fox), what transpires in a nutshell is this: The protagonists marry each other while thoroughly intoxicated, and later win a ton of dough.

The not-so-happy-the-next-morning couple are commodities trader Joy (Cameron Diaz), who had just been dumped by her longtime boyfriend, Mason (Jason Sudeikis), and Jack (Ashton Kutcher), a womanizing slacker fired by his own father (Treat Williams) from his closet-building job.

To drown their respective sorrows, the two (at first, strangers to each other) New Yorkers take off for the fabled Sin City -- in tandem with their respective best pals -- Tipper (Lake Bell) and Steve (Rob Corddry), the latter also Jack's lawyer. They meet when they accidentally wind up in the same room, sparking the first of several tiresome slapstick sequences.

The mix-up gets them upgraded to penthouse suites, and a slew of vouchers. The couples team up, get (as noted) wildly inebriated, and Joy awakens the next morning with a ring on her finger, much to her and Jack's embarrassment and regret.

Later in the casino, they amicably agree to split, but just as they're walking away from each other, Jack plays Joy's quarter in a slot machine, and they hit the jackpot.

When they return home, a judge (Dennis Miller) orders them to try to make the marriage work for six months before ruling on who keeps the $3 million winnings.

Director Tom Vaughan's romantic comedy, from a humor-deficient script by Dana Fox, is lame and tasteless, even though sex scenes as such are nil. Even so, the Judd Apatow brand of gross-out comedy is, by comparison, a paragon of delicacy and wit.

For the most part, Diaz comes off better than Kutcher -- his character is unrelievedly annoying as written -- though they both recover something of their dignity in the movie's more serene final scenes. Corddry's one-note misanthrope is a loathsome bore. Queen Latifah offers a few moments of welcome serenity as the savvy court-appointed marriage counselor.

In more adept hands, the basic premise could have been a charmer, however predictable, but even when the film eventually shifts gears for its warm and fuzzy homestretch, a flashback coda jolts us back to the sophomoric ineptitude of all that has come before it.

The film contains pervasive vulgar humor, implied premarital cohabitation, scatological elements, some skimpy costuming, much crude language and brief profanity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

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Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies.

END

Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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