What Happens In Vegas DVD > Reviews > Should Have Stayed in Vegas

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Hated it
Story	Very weak
Characters / Performances	Weak
Special Effects	Unmemorable
How does it compare to similar films?	Weak

Advantages:	It's relatively short .
Disadvantages:	Misjudged writing, sloppy direction, phoned - in performances .

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Joy is a tightly wound New York stockbroker dumped by her fiancé and Jack is a slacker fired from his job in the family carpentry business by his own father. Both decide to shrug off their worries with a trip to Las Vegas. But after an alcohol-fuelled night they wake to find themselves married. They agree to an annulment but then Jack wins a three million-dollar jackpot on a slot machine using Joy's quarter. They take their fight for the payout to court where a judge sentences them to six months hard marriage before he will release a penny to either one. But then each sets about schemes to ditch the other and keep all the money.

"Starter for Ten" director Tom Vaughan makes his Hollywood debut with this dreadful piece of tat. He clearly doesn't care about his characters, allowing them to remain two-dimensional stereotypes throughout. The closest we get to character development comes in the opening minutes when he shows Joy's high pressure lifestyle as she walks to work with her fiancé while Jack is having no-strings sex with a lady friend. But the rest of the movie feels like a game of compare and contrast as we cut back and forth between the lead characters and their friends having the same conversations and coming to the same conclusions on an alarmingly frequent basis. There are a lot of montages that compress the relationship and rob the film of a sense of time passing. There's no feeling that the characters' behaviour is escalating as a reaction to their constant niggling. They just start off determined not to get along and become consistently worse. So it's virtually impossible to like either one or to buy into the inevitable reversal towards the final stages.

There isn't enough comedy to keep the plot motoring throughout the ninety-nine minute running time and what there is feels laboured. The character comedy doesn't work because the parts are under-written, the slapstick is unoriginal and the situation comedy forced. There's also a little matter of timing, as in Vaughan doesn't have any. He allows jokes to run on too long so they cease to be funny and pre-empts them too much so they go off like damp squibs when they eventually arrive. Casting is also a problem as the leads have no chemistry. The pacing stutters and there are crunching shifts in tone as he jerks from the main storyline to the subplot about Joy's job promotion. And there's the bizarre choice to put a montage of Joy and Jack's wedding at the end of the film where it makes little sense and an end credits gag that is funnier than the rest of the preceding film. So in the end Vaughan's glossy visuals are wasted.

The screenplay by "The Wedding Date" scribe Dana Fox is seriously misjudged. It appears she learnt nothing from her debut film, which lacked character development and any decent gags. You can tell she's hoping for an "Odd Couple" vibe as Joy and Jack are from opposite ends of the social spectrum. She's a successful career woman while he's a carpenter, she's been in a long-term relationship while he's a jack-the-lad, she's tightly wound and controlling while he's a slob and so on. Consequently the couple feel like stereotypes and Fox never delves any deeper into their back-stories or personalities so they feel real. Their antipathy towards each other is necessitated by the script but feels forced as a result. The same is true of the relationship between Hater and Tipper which is leading to a very obvious "comic" payoff. The whole movie is predictable in the extreme and you can spot the outcome from the opening moments. A subplot involving Joy's potential work promotion feels like a clumsy attempt to distract from this as it is so poorly thought out. The inevitable romance is borne of nothing and feels like a sop to cinematic convention. The verbal gags are stilted, including Joy's prolonged complaint about her popcorn and a bonding moment that turns into a laboured fight. Overall the dialogue sounds unnatural and is further damaged by the use of a naff "be yourself" monologue that manages to work in some dodgy gambling analogies.

Cameron Diaz is the go-to girl for goofy female performances, so she should be able to pull off the role of Joy with her eyes shut. But she's played too many dizzy dames to convince as a high-maintenance, controlling stockbroker. She doesn't have the required status and despite the power suits she never looks the part. You know there's something wrong with her performance when you spend most of the time marvelling at the amount of slap she's wearing and how muscular she is. You can't help feeling she's just turned up for the pay cheque as her timing is off and there's no spark between her and her on-screen love interest.

I'll never understand the appeal of Ashton Kutcher, who appears to be the world's only living brain donor. He's made a career of getting his shirt off and mugging at the cameras and that's exactly what he does as Jack. He's slobbish and scruffy, but really can't act so there's no depth to his performance. He also suffers from dodgy timing, so isn't very funny and has no chemistry with Cameron Diaz, making a mockery of their relationship.

The supporting cast seems to be an exercise in miscasting. Rob Corddry plays too straight as jack's best friend and lawyer Hater, making the character come across as a real prat rather than comic relief. He's an okay slapstick stooge, but there character is too harsh. The same can be said of Lake Bell as Joy's friend Tipper, who takes everything too seriously, making the part unpleasant rather than funny.

The original music by Christophe Beck goes for a 70s funk sound with lots of electric guitar, Hammond organ and brushed cymbal. There are playful woodwind arrangements with maracas and xylophone and rising strings and tolling chimes for the judge's initial decision. It suggests a sense of fun that is otherwise absent from the movie. However Beck goes over the top with syrupy strings when there are suggestions of romance or happiness. He's more successful when using gypsy violins and castanets for Jack and Joy's first argument or tango melodies for sexual tension. Both speak to the combative nature of the relationship. The other soundtrack choices are eclectic, including Mika's "Grace Kelly", "We Are the Champions" for the big win, Eels, "Flashdance", Ian Dury and the Blockheads and "You Sexy Thing". But most of the tracks are overly literal.

"What Happens in Vegas" is a flop of a romantic comedy hampered by poor timing, clichés and a lack of chemistry between the leads. The writing is hackneyed and there aren't enough laughs to go round. Vaughan's direction makes it feel like the movie was made in the editing suite instead of the studio. Watch it only if you're a serious Cameron Diaz fan and are so drunk you'll laugh at anything.