MOVIE REVIEW: Couples Retreat (12A)

It’s hard to believe Vince Vaughn was once considered indie cinema’s biggest up-and-comer. Post-millennium, Vaughn has set up his stall as a box office-friendly comedy god. It may not be the most edgy of career choices, nonetheless he has proven very successful with some great movies (The Break Up, Wedding Crashers), and even the average fare (Four Christmases) has at least raised his profile thanks to strong box office. His latest is a re-team with Swingers BFF Jon Favreau (himself reinvented as the director of Iron Man) for marriage comedy Couples Retreat.

Dave (Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Ackerman) have a pretty strong marriage. Kids, big house, everything you could wish for. So they are somewhat reluctant when their friends Jason and Cynthia (Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell) ask them to come on a couples retreat weekend, as a group discount would make it affordable for their relatively troubled relationship. Joined by sexually frustrated Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristen Davis), and the divorced Shane (Faizon Love) and his 20-year-old girlfriend Trudy (Kali Hawk), they head to Eden, a tropical but strict resort run by the mystic Marcel (Jean Reno), and soon realise their marriages may need more work than they first thought...

Being a modern Vince Vaughn film, you can expect one-liners here, there and everywhere. But what’s missing is any sort of interesting plot; the whole film just seems to be an excuse for a holiday for Favreau and Vaughn (who also wrote the script). The set up is very flimsy, and the couples are quite boring stereotypes, not least Love and Hawk, who are so clichéd it’s nearly offensive. Not an awful lot happens that isn’t humdrum, safe humour, and the performances are so un-engaging, those who don’t predict what happens won’t care.

Vaughn can be a terrific actor at times, but as Dave it feels like a bad improv comedy night. He’s still one of the funnier elements of the movie, making the most of a poor story by providing the best punch lines. Bateman and Favreau both revert to type (uptight and gluttonous respectively), whilst Ackerman, Davis and Bell all have little to do other than look good in bikinis. The one interesting stand out is Peter Serafinowicz, as Eden’s manager, and Reno may be insane as Marcel but he looks like he’s having great fun doing it.

Overall a rather tedious comedy that raises enough laughs not to be awful, but not enough to be anything interesting. It will probably please fans of Vaughn’s previous films, but one suspects this was an opportunity to make some quick bucks between their heftier projects.

Couples Retreat is out October 16.