I was reading Michael Phillips' review of this film, as I hadn't had a chance to catch "What Happens in Vegas" during opening weekend.

 

As I was watching the film, I kept thinking to myself "Man, Phillips really nailed it."

 

On occasion, movie trailers are wrong. I'm sure you've experienced the same thing I have. Sometimes, a movie trailer just rubs you the wrong way and you find yourself thinking "This film is really gonna suck."

 

In this case, the movie trailer also nails it..."What Happens in Vegas" really sucks.

 

Starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher as a "mismatched" pair who find themselves waking up in Vegas having married after a night with one or twenty too many drinks. The two agree to part when Kutcher's Jack drops Cameron's Joy (Critic's Note: "Jack and Joy." Cringe) quarter into a slot machine and wins $3,000,000.

 

Of course, it all ends up in court where the judge (Dennis Miller) sentences the two to six months of "hard marriage."

 

Man, I can still see Miller saying "hard marriage." Nauseating.

 

What follows, and this is where Phillips really nails it, is a series of opportunities to humiliate one another in which Jack nearly always gets the upper hand. As Phillips points out, isn't it odd to have a female screenwriter, Dana Fox ("27 Dresses"), be so convicted in her humiliation of the female lead. As Phillips states "that's what male screenwriters are for."

 

Yep, true 'nuf.

 

As much as I'd love to fail this film, against seemingly insurmountable odds Kutcher and Diaz do have an interesting comic chemistry and the film occasionally is quite funny. While there's not an ounce of originality in the script, "What Happens in Vegas" does manage to occasionally entertain.

 

Tech credits make "What Happens in Vegas" look like a low-budget Vegas porno much of the time, not that I've ever seen a low-budget Vegas porno, of course.

 

A film better left to a life on home video, "What Happens in Vegas" is simply the latest in a long line of lame romantic comedies from Diaz and safe "no acting required" roles from Kutcher.

 

What happens in Vegas? The same stuff you've seen in every B-grade romantic comedy for the last 50 years.

 

Well, minus peeing in the sink.