What Happens in Vegas may be worth $3 million
Written: May 12 '08
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Kutcher and Diaz are great together
Cons: Predictable
The Bottom Line: I thought it was very funny, plus Rob Corddry stole the show.
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| phungus's Full Review: What Happens in Vegas |
What Happens in Vegas is a new romantic comedy starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz. It opened the same weekend as Speed Racer and wound up making almost the same amount of money during that first weekend, only this movie didn’t cost over $100 million to produce. I found this to be a rather fun movie with plenty of laughs, and Kutcher was basically just playing an older version of his Kelso character from That 70’s Show.
Cameron Diaz plays a high strung financial analyst who is so organized that she actually ‘plans to make plans’. In an early scene, her fiancée dumps her at a surprise birthday party, just moments before all her friends were supposed to jump out and yell ‘surprise’! To cope with the breakup, Diaz and a sassy friend (Lake Bell) decide to go party in Las Vegas for a few days.
Ashton Kutcher plays a slacker who gets fired from his own father’s carpentry business. He’s the kind of guy who sits around and drinks beer and plays video games all day, yet he’s got a perfectly lean body. After getting fired by his dad, Ashton and a lawyer friend (Rob Corddry) decide to go party in Vegas for a few days, and they wind up at the same hotel as Diaz and her friend.
Through a computer mistake, the hotel books Diaz and Kutcher in the same room. The girls are in the bathroom getting ready to go out when the guys show up, so there’s a funny first meeting scene where they are all running around in their underwear screaming at each other. Once they realize it was the hotel’s mistake, they straighten things out and get free room upgrades. The two groups end up spending a night out on the town.
The next morning, Diaz wakes up to find a cheap looking wedding ring on her finger. It turns out that in a drunken stupor, she and Kutcher got married at some Vegas chapel. The following morning they agree that it was all a mistake and want to get it annulled, when suddenly one of them hits a $3 million jackpot on a slot machine. Suddenly their marriage is worth all that money, and now they have to go to court to figure out who gets the cash. The slot machine had a max bet of two quarters, and they had each contributed one quarter.
In the court scene, Dennis Miller plays the judge who gives a funny little speech about marriage values and the like. Rather than grant them a divorce, he orders the two to spend six months together and undergo counseling, then they will decide about the money. For those six months, both Diaz and Kutcher try everything they can to get on each other’s nerves and make the other give up. As times go by, you can figure they also get a little sweet on each other.
Although this whole movie is predictable from the moment they pull the handle on that slot machine, it is still pretty fun to watch. It reminded me a little of the comedy The Break-Up with Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Anniston in how it’s about two people who don’t like each other but still live together for a common purpose. The same kind of ‘hate you first, love you later’ formula works pretty well for movies like this.
Ashton and Cameron have great chemistry together, so the whole thing works really well. They both have experience doing physical comedy, and there is a little bit of slapstick going on. They also both get to demonstrate some acting ability when confronted with the father figures in their life. For Cameron Diaz, it’s her boss, played by Dennis Farina. For Kutcher, it’s his overbearing dad played by Treat Williams.
The real star of this show is Rob Corddry, who has had bit parts in many of the comedies made in the past few years. He also used to work on The Daily Show as a correspondent. Corddry plays the loser lawyer friend who wants to party like a frat boy, and he steals every single scene that he is in. This role is the biggest he’s had in any movie, and I do expect to see him pop up a lot more often after the success of this one.
The screenplay for this movie was written by Dana Fox, who previously wrote The Wedding Date. Apparently her thing is to write romantic comedies based around weddings and marriages. Tom Vaughan directed this, and his previous works include mostly television shows like Big Love and John from Cincinatti. One thing I noticed about the overall story was that it seemed like some parts had been cut out to shorten the length of the film. For example, there were hints at a little something going on between Corddry’s character and Diaz’s friend but it didn’t go anywhere.
If you go see this in the theater, don’t run out as soon as the credits roll, because there are two short scenes that show their chapel marriage, plus a little bonus scene involving revenge on Diaz’s ex. It’s a great way to close the movie with some big laughs. In the end, What Happens in Vegas is a funny romantic comedy that I think most guys could tolerate seeing in exchange for making their girlfriends/wives go see all the comic book movies coming out this summer.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Date Movie
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