Eye Candy #215 - "Couples Retreat"

Couples Retreat:  It’s saying something about a film when not even Jason Bateman gets to be funny.  “Extract” did the same thing and look at the snoozer that was.  Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau put their heads together and came up with a romantic “comedy” about 4 couples who go to a tropical resort ostensibly to vacay, but find themselves “working” on their relationships, led by a goofy French relationship guru (played by Jean Reno).  Over the course of several days, the couples discover their various relationships are lacking that special something they once had and eventually rekindle their feelings for one another.  Boring, with various gags that just aren’t funny (one of the bits involves around ‘Guitar Hero’.  Raise your hand if you thought that was an interesting enough game to base films around.)  Everyone seems to be playing stereotypes.  Really the only bright spot in the film is Faizon Love who, usually relegated to comic supporting roles with no depth, gets to play an African-American man trying to get over the dissolution of his marriage by shacking up with a much younger woman and having a midlife crisis of sorts.  I hope this means he will have meatier parts thrown his way, as his scenes were some of the best of the film.  They were easily the least contrived and stereotypical (the character of his girlfriend, however, was so stereotypical as to be offensive).  Even getting to stare at Malin Akerman and   Kristen Bell, two women I find very attractive, didn’t prevent this movie from being very dull.  But it did make me want to take a vacation to Bora Bora.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”