Word: vaughn
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...there movies nobody likes but everyone sees? Yes, especially over weekends when only one major-studio film is released. That seemed to be the case with Couples Retreat, the Vince Vaughn comedy that received a flatulent 13% on Rotten Tomatoes' survey of critics' reviews and a mediocre B rating from CinemaScore's poll of exiting moviegoers. Yet by Sunday night, according to early estimates, it will have earned $35.4 million, the top gross ever for a movie on Columbus Day weekend...
Couples Retreat tells the tale of a reduced-rate trip to Bora Bora taken by a quartet of Midwestern guys (Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman and Faizon Love) and their spouses or squeezes (four actresses with Ks in their names). It's now 13 years since Vaughn and Favreau made their early rep with the smart buddy-comedy Swingers. In the interim, Favreau has become a respected director (Elf, Iron Man) and Vaughn, pretty much, a movie star. Three of the films he has top-lined - Wedding Crashers, The Break-Up and Four Christmases - have taken in about $450 million...
...about four couples who go to Eden, a luxury tropical resort that features couples counseling along with its crystalline waters and multiple hot tubs. Vaughn plays the leader of the glum-married pack, Dave, a producer of video games (including Guitar Hero) who lives with his chirpy wife Ronnie (Malin Akerman) and kids in a snowy suburb. Favreau is Joey, a former high school-football star who got cheerleader Lucy (Kristin Davis) pregnant on prom night, did the "right" thing and has been growing toxically bitter ever since...
...Couples Retreat was co-written by Vaughn and Favreau, with an assist from Dana Fox, and it has the choppiness you'd expect from too many cooks in the kitchen (in contrast, Favreau was the only screenwriter on Swingers). I'm fine with the original Trent ("money") and Mike (not "money," no matter what Trent said) moving to the suburbs, having kids, getting fat and spending weekends at Home Depot and Applebee's. These things happen. What's depressing is that there's hardly a creative spark in this sour, offensive, contrived story, and its sloppiness is more consistent than...
...There has always been an edge to the pairing of Favreau and Vaughn, but it's usually Vaughn who plays the fast-talking loathsome one. In Made, he played a character so astoundingly annoying, it bordered on performance art, but he got away with it on the strength of his natural charm and youthful beauty. Here he's been neutered, and Favreau takes on the role instead. It's not that Favreau isn't believable as Joey, a horny guy who is angry at the hand life has dealt him. It's that he's too believable. He arrives...