What Happens in Vegas
2008
A buttoned-up stockbroker gets dumped by her high-powered boyfriend while, across town
in another movie,
a slacker gets fired by his own dad. They both decide that Vegas is
the cure for what ails them. They meet in Vegas, hook-up, get married in a
drunken haze, and regret it
when they wake up in the morning. No problem, except that before they can get
an annulment, they end up winning a three million dollar jackpot, and their
marriage makes the money community property.
"That's not a premise for a film," you're thinking. "Split the
money down the middle and give me back the nine bucks I paid to watch this."
You're right - up to a point - but the next development is a high concept
premise that creates a movie (sort of): a weird judge decides that
neither of them will get a penny unless they try six months of marriage, so
they have to learn how to be better human beings ... and maybe, eventually, they
will really fall in love.
Gee, d'ya think?
It's a formulaic romantic comedy. Boy meets girl, loses girl, goes through
period of extreme stress, gets girl back, as well as his own soul. Everything
transpires in front of wisecracking sidekicks. It's your basic Rob Lowe / Demi
Moore movie from 1986 with a few twists and a younger cast. The Demi Moore
connection is intact, however, since the male lead is none other than her
boy-toy husband Ashton Kutcher. Cameron Diaz plays his foil, and the Jim
Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins roles are played by Rob Corddry and a certain
Lake Bell, who is apparently a female person and not a body of water. "Vegas"
is not especially better or worse than the usual Hollywood fluff. In fact,
it's probably a cut above the usual McConaughey/Hudson material. The
film's great weakness is that the comical sidekicks are not quite comical
enough. OK. I admit it, I actually like James Belushi's "regular Chicago guy"
character, and I think Belushi does the sardonic sidekick better than Rob
Corddry. Of course, that's faint praise. Pauly Shore would probably be funnier
than Corddry and maybe even more likeable. OK, maybe not the last part. The
movie is not helped by the fact that Ashton Kutcher still needs those acting
lessons which Cameron Crowe once offered him, but the audience comes to like
and root for the main characters, and cheers for them to get together, so that
makes the film work on its own rom-com terms, at least well enough to make it a
mini-hit
Cameron Diaz film
clips. There is no nudity, but there's a nice look at the bottom of her
bum in skimpy underpants.
The clips are OK, but these samples stink because I have not yet loaded
Photoshop on my new computer. I'll get there soon.
