Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009

'Couples Retreat' more agreeable than hilarious

By Edward Robertson, atomictown.com

I think the ultimate secret about marriage is that nobody has any clue what a marriage actually is.

The stereotypes about it are as thick as glue pudding. It kills sex. It's wives obsessing over paint colors while husbands embed themselves on the couch, closer to John Madden and Peyton Manning than the woman they're married to.

Nobody's ever happy, but at least the kids are cute. Since I can't legally marry my life-sized stand-up of Princess Amidala (thanks, prudes), I'll never know what matrimony is really like, but the picture I get from comedies and dramas is that everyone involved in one is hopelessly unqualified for the job.

Not good news for the kids they raise, but great news for the fodder-hungry entertainment industry that chews problems up and spits them back out across our movie screens. The latest to tackle the issue of "Marriage: Yea or Nay?" isn't good, exactly, but Couples Retreat is at least a retrograde maneuver rather than a head-for-the-hills, every-man-for-himself withdrawal these things usually are.

Inability to conceive has strained the marriage of Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell to the breaking point. Before they call it quits, they decide to see if they can work things out at a week-long couples therapy session on a beautiful island.

Lacking the cash to go by themselves, they talk three other couples into going with them, promising snorkeling, jet skis, and a good time by all. But on arrival, they discover the therapy program is mandatory, leaving the group locked in a rigid program of partner-appreciation, counseling and yoga.

That doesn't sound so horrific unless you happen to have a Y chromosome, in which case you'd probably rather spend a week being drowned in a vat of split-pea soup. Couples Retreat billed itself as a romantic comedy but for dudes, and with the presence of Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau (who co-wrote, along with Dana Fox), there's at least the hope it'll play in the same ballpark as Swingers.

Like their breakout film, this one is chatty and brusque. Unlike Swingers, this constant blather rarely ends up provoking many laughs. It's lightly funny throughout, but it's more agreeable than hilarious.

Odd, considering they have about ninety jillion characters to make jokes with. You know how most movies have one or two main characters? Couples Retreat makes the infinitely wise decision to have eight.

I don't even have eight friends. How am I supposed to keep up with that many fictional leads? The script doesn't seem to know, either; though Vaughn and Favreau get a good amount of screen time (how convenient!), everyone else, including their wives, is shuffled off to the sidelines, leaving us in the awkward position of trying to care about the relationships of people we know nothing about. I still don't know anything about Faizon Love's character other than he's fat and easily tired.

It's a testament to the movie's overall likeability that it's not outright insufferable once these sketched-in people start in with the mandatory heartfelt speeches of reconciliation. These pack slightly more punch than your average feel-good makeup speech, but that's like saying O'Doul's will get you drunk faster than water: true enough, but surely there's a better way. A beer bottle of a movie, Couples Retreat is fleetingly fun and awfully disposable.

Grade: C+