Review: What Happens in Vegas

Okay, so I rent this movie at the local "99 cent Mondays" at a local store and figure "what the heck".  Now, any movie with Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher as the lead's isn't one that I think will particularly "inform me", "make me double over in laughter" or "wow me".  As I think back to the movies these two have been in lately, none of them "Jump out".   Okay, to the movie itself...."ready, go"

The basis of this movie is that Joy McNally (Diaz) and Jack Fuller (Kutcher) end up in Vegas separately, after facing relationship trauma; Kutcher after being fired by his boss/father and Diaz after her fiance breaks their engagement due to her uptightness.  Each one comes to Vegas with a best friend, yet a hotel mistake plops them all in a single room.  After some one upping each other with the desk clerk, the four end up partying late into the night.  Cue to the morning where Joy and Jack find that after a drunken night they're now married.  When cooler heads prevail they end up downstairs determining how to end the marriage when Jack borrows a coin from Joy and plays a slot machine.  <Cue the music>  Lo and behold, Jack hits the jackpot and wins $3,000,000.  Problem is whose money is it?  <Cue the court room>  Conservative judge, played by Dennis Miller, freezes the money and orders the couple to really work on their marriage for six months, including weekly couples therapy.  If they both finish the six months then the money will be split evenly, but if either one breaks the order then the other person gets the full amount.  Got that?

 

What transpires are the hijinks of each person trying to get the other to want out of the marriage.  Time together and therapy changes people and Joy and Jack's attitudes toward each other soften.  The question is whether greed or love will win out.

I went into this movie with little expectations or worry, since it was a buck rental.  While the stereotype scenario is there and Diaz and Kutcher don't wow us on screen, the movie wasn't half bad.  There are funny parts, mixed with some sappy scenes.   Unfortunately, the ending seems rushed and fits a lot in a short time frame.  Of course, neither Kutcher or Diaz will carry a movie by themselves, so perhaps the ending came "just in time".

 

Jester says "wait for "99 cent day" at your local rental store and enjoy the movie, despite its shortcomings.

 

  out of