Friday, July 08, 2011

Day 7: Couples Retreat

Date: July 7
Film: Couples Retreat [usa, 2009]
Where: Tulsa/at home/blu-ray
Who with: Sarah J. 
Rating: Joshua **; SJ  **
How good it should have been with this cast: ****

I've mentioned the problem of blu-rays before on CineRobot, they look and sound so good it is tempting to watch pretty much anything on them due to the look/sound. Hence, Couples Retreat. Went from the recommended greatness of Buck, to the scraping the bottom of the barrel Couples Retreat. When you are watching movies every single day, you must be prepared to ride that roller coaster of good or bad. Couples Retreat is definitely in the awful category.

It should have been much better than that based on the cast alone. Check the poster out and tell me there aren't at least four funny people in Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau and Kristen Bell [maybe a slight stretch]. Bateman is comic gold in no matter what crappy film he's playing support in. Plus, John Michael Higgins and Ken Jeong have small roles and they are a couple of funny guys as well. Let's blame Favreau and Vaughn as they co-wrote a bland, cliche ridden script that is so watered down and unfunny the only thing that remotely saves this is when characters seem to be improvising. SJ turned to me about 30 minutes in and asked incredulously how in the world could the pair have written this extremely lame bit of mainstream hugging dialogue? I didn't really have an answer. Beautiful island scenery, I guess, is the best thing Couples Retreat as going for it during its 100 minutes of flat jokes and unoriginal comedic set-ups.

3 comments:

Cinerobotina said...

The only funny part in this movie is when Vince Vaughn talks about Richard Simmons.

Joshua Blevins Peck said...

You were giggling during the yoga scene if I recall correctly...

Cinerobotina said...

Oh yes! It was so ridiculous and reminded me of my last class at the Yoga Room when we were asked to expand and contract our anal sphincter muscle. Im being serious.