Couples Retreat
by movieguy45 on Oct.14, 2009, under 2 stars, Comedy Movies, He says...
Yesterday we decided to shell out the fifteen plus bucks to go see the new Vince Vaughn / Jon Favreau creation in theaters now called Couples Retreat. I mean, from the outside, it has the makings of a great comedic masterpiece with the likes of the Swingers creators at the helm, not to mention decent one-liners in the trailer and the amazing Veronica Mars herself, Kristen Bell. But as I was sitting in my velour theater chair, I found myself actually quite bored, and the movie was probably a mere 15 minutes into the film. Dealing with heavy issues as divorce and family problems from the get-go makes you begin to question if you have somehow been duped into some drawn out drama. Of course, they try and keep you interested by sprinkling some comedic one-liners, but they almost fall flat compared to the gravity of other situations. I mean really for most of the movie, the biggest highlight of the film is Colin Baiocchi, the boy who plays Vaughn’s youngest son in the film (and he has probably a total of 5 minutes screen time). Granted, that is not to say that there aren’t funny lines in the film. I did find myself laughing here and there (The shark scene was definitely a hit). But the main problem with the film, I felt, was the awkward progression of the characters through random fights and tension that was not cleverly or fully handled. It seems to happen too often that a film tries to be more then one genre and gets burned. Two movies were going on at the same time, a drama and a slapstick comedy yet the two never really melded together. As soon as there might be a need to solve some problem the movie cuts to another couple to capitalize on something funny they might do. You’re left with the haphazard mess that you can’t decide was good or bad. I mean, while my review of the film does seem entirely bad, I do have to say I did enjoy the funny parts of the film – I just wish there was more of them. I would say to wait for this one on DVD and hope for more one-liners in the deleted scenes.
Rating: 
