VAUGHAN! BATEMAN! FAVREAU! ... but still a shit film!

Couples Retreat - Peter Billingsley

Every year for the past decade, around Valentine’s Day, studios have been releasing movies that follow the theme of people failing madly in love and all that jazz. Now I’m not partial to Valentine’s Day, it’s a horrible holiday used by companies to sell cheap tacky shit for people who think that one day of the year should be used to show their true affection for someone. Now if you’re one of those people who every year buys a girl flowers, chocolates and stuff, then sadly, i feel sorry for you. I feel sorry that you think its right to only spend one day of their showing your affection. I understand when you’re really young, it gives the illusion of finding true love and being happy, making the idea of marriage a good thing, something you should strive, when in actual fact, it’s not the best thing to do. The idea of marriage is wrong. And you’ve seen the figures, the amount of people getting divorced. And now for this year’s Valentine’s Day, they are releasing a film about having counselling for your marriage, finding true love even in a loveless marriage. Yes, they really have. I know in the cinema that have released Valentine’s Day, a cross breed of an American version of Love Actually and Crash. Sick in my mouth.

Now Couples Retreat, released in the cinema before Christmas, which is a very strange time to release it, it’s finally out on DVD, in the nick of time too before the heavy rush of buying for v-day. It stars a cast of comedic actors, who in their own right, can own a film or television show. But sadly here, they are not used to their strengths. Especially Jason Bateman. I love Arrested Development, even if it was cut short only after three seasons! Bateman was the star of that program, well along with Michael Cera and David Cross. Here he is seen to be the villain of the story, it’s a hard character for him to play, and it’s almost contradicting Bateman in how he acts. You can see that Vince Vaughan is the star of the show, and they need that friction between Vaughan and Bateman, but it’s not needed. Jon Favs gives really good interaction with Vaughan, but that’s what you expect from the Swingers boys. The ladies are a good selection with Malin Ackerman, right off of The Watchmen, as a normal woman, then Kristin Bell, who i adored in both Veronica Mars and Fanboys, here she is majorly underused. And Kristin Davis as the character from Sex and the City; pretty much the same role. And then you have the inclusion of the black family. Almost like they thought it would be a good idea to cover all bases. It’s horrible. I know it’s mostly used for comedy, having a larger man with a younger woman, I’m surprised Eddie Murphy or Martin Lawrence wasn’t ask to play it wearing a fat suit. The film is set on a magnificent island, which is the major reason the actors probably signed up for it. And don’t forget the cameo from the almighty Peter Serefinowicz and Onimusha 3’s Jean Reno. Yeah that’s right, an Onimusha reference to end the review!

4/10

Simon Childs