Girl gets embarrassingly dumped by her fiance. Boy gets fired by his father. Girl and Boy meet in Las Vegas, drink too much and get married. Of course, right after Boy and Girl agree to get divorced as quickly as possible, Boy wins $3 million using Girl's quarter.
Whoops.
So goes the story of Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher as Joy and Jack in "What Happens in Vegas." The fight over the money ends up with the two of them forced to live together to make their union work, and their marriage counselor -- Queen Latifah alert! -- will report back on their efforts to the court.
What happens is, of course, entirely predictable.
The two try to dupe and trick the other into forfeiting their share of the money by getting out of the marriage. Sparks fly, tempers rise, etc. But even though the course of the movie is fairly obvious, the jokes along the way are worth sticking it out.
The humor in this movie is decidedly on the juvenile side -- oddly enough, this is the second movie in a row I've seen where someone pees in the sink -- but that doesn't make it any less funny.
Even the lines I heard in commercials and trailers were still funny in the theater, and that's hard to pull off.
I was thrown a bit by how much energy the film has, at times. The inevitable getting-hammered-in-Vegas montage is fast-paced and glitzy but still imparts a lot of character information and advances the plot. That energy drops off in the middle, though it thankfully rebounds at the end.
I don't think Kutcher really stretched himself for this particular role. Jack is a mix of the annoying Ashton from "Punk'd" and his slacker alter-ego on "That '70s Show," which isn't anything we haven't seen before. It works for him, though -- there's a reason he gets cast in these affable roles. Diaz at least puts a bit more effort into her career-driven, uptight Joy.
The supporting cast works as well, though I just wanted to punch Rob Corddry in the face every time I saw him on screen. His character, inexplicably named Hater, has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Lake Bell as Tipper, Joy's best friend, may be crass and rude, but at least there's genuine friendship between the two females. I get the feeling Hater would sell Jack up the river for a fiver or a six-pack.
Overall, "Vegas" isn't bad for a quick laugh and a good time. And it's cheaper than a plane ticket to Nevada.
Posted in Coverstory on Tuesday, May 20, 2008 12:00 am Updated: 5:16 pm.
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