Movie Review: What Happens in Vegas

When going to see a movie in the actual theater is a cardinal event in one's life, it's especially rewarding if the flick delivers on its promises. Such was definitely the case with What Happens in Vegas. My boyfriend and I went to see it last weekend, when we had a rare opportunity to go on a date sans children, and What Happens in Vegas was a hit with both of us.

What Happens in Vegas opens with bubbly stockbroker Joy McNally (Cameron Diaz) chattering incessantly at her stuffed shirt fiancé, Mason (Jason Sudeikis). She is overflowing with anticipation at setting a wedding date, while he politely avoids the conversation with a noncommittal kiss on her forehead. Meanwhile, across town, Jack Fuller (Ashton Kutcher) pushes his father/employer one step too far with his lackadaisical attitude toward his job in pop's carpentry shop, and gambles his job in a losing game of one-on-one hoops with Fuller senior (Treat Williams). Later that evening, Joy also loses, when Mason decides to kick her out of the couple's shared apartment, in a painfully humiliating scene witnessed by a slew of their closest friends.

Both drown their sorrows in bars that night, simultaneously (yet unbeknownst to the other, as they haven't met yet) deciding along with their respective best friends Hater (Rob Corddry) and Tipper (Lake Bell) that Sin City is the best place to take their minds off their troubles. Once in Vegas, the story unfolds at a swift pace, as a hotel room mix-up followed by a night of drunken revelry results in a marriage that neither party is interested in continuing. In a twist of fate, however, Jack wins a $3,000,000 jackpot with Joy's quarter and complications ensue.

For her role in What Happens in Vegas, Diaz is convincing as the ambitious Type A career-driven Joy, who learns to let her hair down in an attempt to soothe her broken heart. Kutcher is the consummate pretty boy slacker, seemingly unable to participate in a committed relationship and motivated by little aside from sex, beer and video games. When a judge, played by former SNL favorite Dennis Miller, denies the divorce request and decides to freeze the money for six months so that the couple will give married life a fair shake, Jack and Joy are equally horrified and determined to force the other into forfeiting their share of the winnings by breaking the rules of the six month trial marriage.

What follows is a fast-paced, hilarious series of events during which the pair give considerable effort to sabotaging the other. He hits her clean-freak personality square in the eyes by peeing in the sink when she takes too long in the bathroom, and she gives back tit for tat by exposing his plot to frame her for spousal abuse at their requisite weekly counseling session. That scene alone was worth the price of the movie ticket -- Kutcher played it to the hilt and Diaz's straight-man comeback was flawless.

As much as the two try to irritate each other in What Happens in Vegas, ultimately they recognize that they have the ability to bring out the best in each other, helping the other to expose a side of their personality they never thought existed.

I have read many negative reviews of What Happens in Vegas, everything from this is a typical, predictable chick-flick, to "The comedy will play to undemanding juvenile audiences who only want to see two of Hollywood's bright young things diss each other for 90 minutes," (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film/reviews/article_display.jsp?&rid=11064). I find the latter particularly banal, considering that my significant other and I are both intellectual X gen'ers with little interest in celebrity for the sake of itself, and yet we were rolling in the aisles during nearly all of What Happens in Vegas (which, for the record, actually has a running time of 99 minutes).

Predictable? Of course. Everyone loves a happy ending, and when a movie lacks one, we grumble out of the theater bemoaning the disappointing conclusion. I found What Happens in Vegas to be fresh, witty and packed with surefire, old-fashioned slapstick comedy. While the Vegas scenes were a bit dizzying, the movie settled into a non-stop laugh-fest in short order upon the couple's return to New York. The chemistry between the Diaz/Kutcher duo was undeniable, and the supporting characters -- Corddry as Kutcher's low-life lawyer buddy, Bell as Diaz's haute-trampy bartender sidekick, and Queen Latifah as the clever, sophisticated marriage counselor -- lent depth and believability to the film.

If you're looking to take in a flick that's pure belly-laughing fun spiked with a healthy dose of the "awww" factor, why is What Happens in Vegas the perfect choice? You know why. (Go see What Happens in Vegas to get the joke!).