But don’t be fooled by “Couples’ ” incessant ad campaign, which emphasizes the cool setting and familiar Hollywood faces like Vince Vaughn in farcical sight gags. Just because the lavishly mounted ensemble comedy comes along with fabulous postcard vistas of saturated sunshine in a tropical paradise, it doesn’t make suffering through the flat, stupid proceedings worth the trip.
In it, four middle-class pairs are played by Vaughn and “27 Dresses’ ” Malin Akerman Jon Favreau and Kristin Davis, Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell, and Faizon Love and Kali Hawk. The friends flit to a fantasy vacation spot only to find out that the couples bonding program there that they thought was optional is mandatory. Predictably, the semidysfunctional duos are nearly torn asunder by earnest therapists (Jean Reno, Ken Jeong), a fascistic resort manager (Peter Serafinowicz), an oversexed yoga instructor (over-the-top Carlos Ponce), baby sharks, restless
youth, fertility issues and/or years of previously repressed marital baggage.
It’s a high-concept plot in search of a script, though this one is partially credited to co-writers Vaughn and his longtime collaborator Favreau. You can tell Vaughn must be headlining, producing, contriving the story, handpicking the untested director (Peter Billingsley) and helping to cast the picture. Because, like most of the pictures he has controlled (“Fred Claus,” anyone?), it’s such a rudimentary, narrow-minded affair.
The female cast — including those who have supposedly borne children in the story — are flat-bellied, wrinkleless and button-nosed perfection. These unreal housewives of Bora-Bora have no personalities and exist only as eye candy and as long-suffering foils so that the men can monopolize the trite comedy bits.
Meanwhile, these male characters are not only physically undesirable. They are pasty egomaniacs (Vaughn’s character), remorseless adulterers (Favreau’s), domineering obsessive-compulsives (Bateman’s) or blithering idiots (Love’s). Attempts are made to try to inject cheap entertainment value, like from a cute little boy who continually relieves himself in inconvenient places.
But when it comes to “Couples Retreat,” the operative command here, troops, is RETREAT!
