Movie Review: What Happens in Vegas
'What Happens in Vegas' a solid film
By John Wirt
jwirt@theadvocate.com
Advocate movie critic
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Romantic comedies are a tricky business. They can be too sweet or not funny enough. There can be no spark between the principal characters. And romantic comedies can easily be one-sided affairs, thus the derisive term, “chick flick.”
But What Happens In Vegas rises above the hurdles. After chance brings together Jack Fuller, a guy trapped in prolonged adolescence, and Joy McNally, a woman ensnared by her controlling nature, these two fitfully come to realize that they are made for each other.
Playing Joy, Cameron Diaz finds herself in one of the most entertaining movies of her career. Diaz is distractingly orange of complexion, but the distraction doesn’t sink her performance. And Ashton Kutcher, co-starring as Jack, is in one of his better films, by a long shot.
Most important for this kind of comedy, Diaz and Kutcher have that nebulous but impossible-to-miss thing called screen chemistry.
Jack and Joy live in New York City. She’s got a high-pressure job, but he’s hardly working. Jack gets fired shortly after he appears on screen. His own loving dad does the firing.
“You’re supposed to be the future boss,” the exasperated Jack Fuller Sr. (Treat Williams) tells his son. “But you’re too busy being the life of the party.”
Traveling separately and having never met, Jack and Joy fly to Las Vegas to escape their troubles. Joy’s issues include a fiancé who breaks up with her at an inopportune time. Jack’s problems are mostly due to Jack being Jack.
A hotel mix-up brings Joy, Jack and their respective best friends (Rob Corddry and Lake Bell) together. Their noisy, screwball comedy-style first encounter leads to one of those wild Vegas nights, thus the movie’s title, based, of course, on the cliché, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”
It’s all uphill from there. Forced by a cranky, rambling judge (Dennis Miller as Judge Whopper) to at least try to make their impromptu Vegas marriage work, Joy and Jack are thrown together in wedded misery.
The outcome of What Happens In Vegas may be obvious, but the journey there is fun and not so obvious. The script allows the unhappily married couple to grow in convincing ways, adding laughs and even some soul along the twisted way.
Guiding the amusing What Happens In Vegas, British director Tom Vaughan (Starter for 10) gives the film a light but spirited touch. Before the story wraps, the film’s tone shifts drastically and its energy drops precipitously, but not enough to sabotage the strong foundation. While both Vaughan and screenwriter Dana Fox’s previous films weren’t widely seen, What Happens In Vegas suggests their futures are bright.
