Couples Retreat

 Couples Retreat asks an important question: can Vince Vaughn finally star in a movie that isn’t terrible? The answer is a resounding no.

Married couple Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) are considering a divorce, and, in a last-ditch effort to salvage their relationship, they guilt trip six friends into joining them at a luxury resort called Eden. Upon arriving, they find they are required to attend couples counseling, even those in seemingly happy relationships. As one might expect, they start discovering that their relationships are not as perfect as they thought.

The movie is a what’s-what of romantic-comedy stereotypes, as if developing original characters would have distracted the writers from the more important things in life—like Facebook and golf. There’s the well-mannered, sensible good guy (Vaughn), the uber-masculine, womanizing ex-football player (Jon Favreau), the anal-retentive control freak (Bateman), the easygoing, overweight black friend (Faizon Love), the needy, vulnerable woman (Bell) and other similarly uninspired characters.

All this would have been fine if the movie had at least been funny. Instead, the film opts for groan-inducing, gross-out humor and a cliched plot. The characters lack chemistry, and I have literally seen more convincing performances from sock puppets. The funny moments are too few and far between to justify a nearly two-hour running time.

Favreau and Vaughn, who sadly co-penned this monstrosity, did one thing right: there are plenty of women (and men, for better or worse) in bikinis, to distract from the banal. It’s only PG-13 though, so don’t expect anything you wouldn’t see at the beach.

The title Couples Retreat is actually a warning. They should have been even more obvious, though, and called it Everyone Retreat and Save Yourself the Seven Dollars.