Ashton Kutcher may have met his match. No, not matched in the art of romantic chemistry but matched in the art of loudness. There’s a brand of comedian that tries to get laughs by being loud, as if more volume equals more humor. If a joke isn’t funny, just tell it LOUDER and it becomes FUNNIER, supposedly. By this logic, Kutcher must always be the funniest person in the room … except when Cameron Diaz is with him. She’s got quite a pair of lungs.
“What Happens in Vegas” pairs Kutcher and Diaz together in a husband-wife tension comedy. Kutcher plays Jack, a slacker who can’t commit to anything, which causes him to lose his job. Diaz plays Joy, a successful businesswoman who gets dumped and publicly humiliated by her fiancé. Both Jack and Joy escape to Vegas for a crazy weekend of drunk gambling. What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas … except for marriages, that is. Marriage tends to stick with people after Vegas, which is what happens to Jack and Joy.
Drunken mistake marriages are usually solved pretty quickly with a speedy annulment. But had that happened early on, this movie would be over pretty quickly. Instead the movie keeps the two together by having them win $3 million, which a judge orders to be frozen until these two can prove that they are really trying to make the marriage work. Of course, this premise is ridiculous, but at least the movie doesn’t dwell on it. The first act has a zooming pace, as if Tony Scott or Guy Ritchie snuck into the editing room. It zips through the contrived setup with show-off quick cuts.
The movie definitely does have a sense of rhythm, and the classic rock music selection definitely helps. But nothing really seems to connect emotionally. Kutcher and Diaz have a lot of fun in their roles, but they never find the right note to share together. They’re overacting to upstage each other. The hygiene jokes are hit and miss, but the humor is nowhere near as crude and unfunny as last week’s “Made of Honor.” It will not be remembered as one of this year’s great summer entertainments, but then again, it’s being released as counter-programming against some of the recent special effects movies. First-time director Tom Vaughan doesn’t raise the bar too high, and the end result is an easily forgettable summer flick.
