What's Your Obsession With Junk Punching?!?! (What Happens In Vegas... (DVD))

Member Name: JayHall1991

Product:	What Happens In Vegas... (DVD)
Date:	31/08/08 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some Funny Moments, Nice Romance, Good Cast

Disadvantages: Stale, Routine, Silly, Bad Screenplay, Uninspired Direction

Joy is in a rut - she works every hour god sends on the stock exchange and has just been dumped by her fiancée, during a surprise party that she organised for him. Jack is having an equally bad time; he has just been fired by his own father and has no way of making an income. So, both of their friends insist they go to the one place where they can forget all their worries - Los Vegas! Due to a mix up with the hotel room Jack and Joy end up messing and going on a wild night on the town - only to wake up married! But when Jack wins three million dollars on the slots they both want the money. But a judge insists they stay married for six months before he will award anyone the money - unless one of them is proved to be not making the marriage work. Cue six months of one upmanship and trickery!

What Happens in Vegas is an amiable and silly romantic comedy that suffers from a damp script (based on a fairly ridiculous premise), a constant mean spiritedness and limp direction - but is helped by a fun cast, a nice pace and a surprisingly emotional/romantic finale. It's all stupid stuff and the feud between Joy and Jack grows old really fast, but there are some chuckles to be had and the romantic tension between Diaz and Kutcher is undeniable. The romantic elements work surprisingly well - with some very clichéd but poignant moments and lessons learnt about having faith in yourself and learning to love yourself (yada, yada). It's a shame then, that the rest of the film is so mean spirited, that the antics between the characters feel more bitter than funny and that Dana Fox's screenplay crafts a whole array of truly unlikeable characters. It takes a lot of mud throwing to get to the charming bits and even then it will take the most die-hard rom-come lover, which I am, to root for the leads. It's not terrible, but it could have been a whole lot more.

What Happens In Vegas is actually quite funny in short bursts, the physical comedy is crude but well done, Cameron Diaz is the loose-limbed life and soul and the secondary cast (especially the talented Lake Bell) are hilarious. There are some really fun scenes towards the start of the movie and one sequences, which involved Joy on speed, is extremely well done - but after a while the antics get more and more elaborate and more and more unbelievable and then just annoying. When the action is confined to one set it works; the mix of sexual tension and close combat is involving and amusing - but once the action is taken to the 'real world' it just appears ridiculous. A lot of the more elaborate comedic set pieces just don't work - due to the script mean spiritedness and some of the jokes are too stale to raise a laugh. Luckily, What Happens In Vegas does have a few off-the-wall moments that feel more free and improvised and these feel a lot fresher and funnier.

The main problem with What Happens in Vegas is its script; it doesn't know what it wants to be - a mean screwball comedy or a mushy lovey dovey one, and the mix doesn't work. The two elements cancel each other out and the shallow character development makes it hard to connect with anyone - making it difficult to care about what happens to them. Fox laughs at the genre conventions, yet follows them as closely as anyone and she doesn't build up half as much edge as she thinks. However, to her credit she does flesh out the preposterous premise enough to stop things from getting boring and the character development that she does add is fairly moving. But it just doesn't work - she does understand what makes people laugh, relying on easy one-liners (some of which work, but only because of Lake Bell's dead-pan delivery) and stocky slap-stick rather than wit. The whole scenario never feels real and the various plot twists are signalled from the very beginning.

Fortunately the cast do all that they can with the material and manage to cover up some of the films plot holes; Diaz is fun and charming (although still insists on over-acting in every scene) and Kutcher, for once, pulls off the roguish likeability that he's been trading off for years. Diaz is believable enough as the uptight Joy, plays drunk extremely convincingly, is a queen of slap-stick and makes her unlikeable character fairly sympathetic. Kutcher brings some poignancy to his characters search for approval and is suitably disgusting in the films comedic moments - he is also a fairly strong romantic lead. And the two leads have a sparkling, romantic energy that makes them really easy to watch and they have a fun sexual chemistry which is engaging and realistic. However, the Lake Bell takes the spotlight with her cynical, intelligent and hilarious portrayal as Joy's best friend - she brings a whole new energy to the film and really squeezes all of the laughs from her dialogue. She is a very confident and appealing presence and she has a dead-pan quality that brings a new level to the material. Her relationship with Diaz is believable and she makes for an interesting romantic foil (as she did in the equally irritating Over Her Dead Body)

The film is more successful when it switches mode to become a more conventional romantic-comedy; it has plenty of charming moments and it uses some of the genres most well-worn clichés to its advantage. When it concentrates on making the character feel like real people it becomes much more compelling; the lead characters do follow genuine journey's which are interesting and engaging. It's never anything new but it's feel-good enough to make the slightly dodgy dynamic work. Tom Vaughan does a good job of keeping a fun pace and makes some of the comedy pop - but he doesn't direct with enough confidence or oomph to make the film particularly memorable and doesn't do anything to distinguish it from all the other entries in the rom-com genre. He directs with a certain amount of style and seems well suited to the film more romantic aspects but he fails to add any edge to the physical comedy and doesn't do anything particularly special.

Overall, What Happens In Vegas is a fun, but ultimately shallow piece of Hollywood fluff. It manages to raise a few chuckles and has some nice romantic moments that let Diaz and Kutcher shine but in the end it is just another mildly enjoyable entry into the rom-com genre. Worth seeing for Lake bell's funny characterisation and the fun chemistry between the leads - but don't expect anything truly charming (thanks to the mean-spirited screenplay) or truly funny/

Summary: A Fun but Stupid Bit Of Fluff