The first time Vince Vaughn teamed up with Jon Favreau they created the guy’s guy classic “Swingers.”
In “Couples Retreat,” the pair have more pressing things on their minds – carpooling, potty training and divorce proceedings.
The new comedy finds the duo, who co-wrote the film along with Dana Fox, facing the kind of problems the “Swingers” characters never dreamed of.
Just don’t expect “Retreat” to go down as a middle age classic of any sort. It’s as lazy as a carefree night in Bora Bora, with only a colorful cast to save itself from utter banality.
“Retreat” follows four couples who, at the behest of one duo on the cusp of divorce, head to Bora Bora for a well deserved vacation.
When they arrive they find the vacation isn’t what they expected. It’s a highly regimented couples program meant to work through relationship problems.
“This looks like a screen saver,” Favreau’s character says, and the gorgeous locales make it feel like the audience is on an all expense paid vacation.
But the program’s rules quickly grate on the couples, and the embattled pair (Jason Batemen, Kristen Bell) seem heading for divorce despite their best efforts.
Director Peter Billingsley – yes, he’s Ralphie from “A Christmas Story” – negotiates the funnier scenes with clocklike precision. But considering the improv potential here, and the fact that Vaughn and Favreau penned the script, we’re left with predictable jokes and surface-level insights into married life.
Any Hollywood hack could write gags around a massage table and yoga session. A few lines hit the mark, like references to Applebee’s as a generic source of tranquility in married life, but they remain the exception here.
Vaughn and Favreau may be pals in real life, but few of the actor pairings here feel genuine. There’s too much going on and too little palpable bonding to think these four couples truly share something more than just a vacation turned sour.
Why not push the envelope on the program’s rigid structure, or give the great Jean Reno better lines – and more screen time – as the program’s eccentric creator?
We do get some laughs, mostly courtesy of Vaughn’s still potent motor mouth. The actor may be getting older, but his comic tic is forever young.
“Couples Retreat” delivers jaw dropping scenery and a cast you’d kill to hang with on a deserted island, but the film isn’t nearly as money as it thinks it is.
(Photo: Jon Favreau, Malin Akerman, Vince Vaughn, Faizon Love and Kristin Davis star in “Couples Retreat,” a new comedy directed by Peter Billingsley/Universal Pictures)
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I generally find Vaughn mediocre. Thanks for the review, I think I’ll skip this one.
I am a huge Vince Vaughn fan, which is getting harder to remain with some of his latest offerings. One movie my husband and I did not like or “get” was ‘Swingers.’ We saw it recently, since we had always heard so much about it. We could barely finish it and mainly just wanted to smack Jon Favreau’s character the whole time for being such a crybaby about everything. Maybe we are just too old to appreciate it.
Interesting reaction to Swingers, Tink. It’s definitely a guy’s movie, but one I thought women could relate to on some level.
I missed Four Christmases … but I did see Fred Claus and the nightmares from it haven’t gone away.