COUPLES RETREAT

Hard work must have been spent in the opening credit sequence of COUPLES RETREAT which is an archival montage of couples in love in the past century, including strung together scratchy black & white clips. An easy sap in the audience will sigh at these moments. If you’re cynical, note the rest of the movie isn’t some kind of ironic anti-love statement as you might predict, actually, it’s pro-marriage – at least in its facile intent. Four couples fly to a place called Eden, that might be recognized as Bora Bora to some luxury-endowed vacationers, to go through Couples Skill Building classes and marital therapist sessions.

The comic angle of the movie is that these couples unravel while on holiday until husband and wife start taking verbal rips at each other – and then, in theory, make-up again. The earliest scenes are the snappiest, veering briefly onto that rare commodity of what you can call fresh comedy. PowerPoint presentation that is indelicate yet tactful, a friend’s request for borrowed money to buy a cool motorcycle just to impress his new girl, a toddler mistaking the use of a furnishing store display toilet.

How about the stars showcase? Vince Vaughn (his “Wedding Crashers” character wouldn’t recognize the new Vaughn) is a conscientious father of two, with Malin Akerman (“The Heartbreak Kid”) as his pretty but overspent wife. Jon Favreau and Kristen Bell would be an attractive married couple if they weren’t always desperately searching for new partners. Faizon Love is the porky-fat black guy emotionally caught between his divorced ex-wife and his new raunchy girlfriend. They’re all corralled by Jason Batemen and Kristen Bell, the well-groomed and overly dogmatic couple, to join them on a paradise getaway with the purpose of strengthening marital bond.

Throw in some pro forma conflicts between each couple and then you have, well, conflict. The best casting decision in the supporting roles were selecting John Michael Higgins and Ken Jeong as therapists (if you’re a movie buff, you know these guys). The worst casting decision was selecting Jean Reno (“The Professional”) as the inane couples’ guru and instructor. Nothing however is more overworked than the shark attack scene or the scene with a hunky but lascivious yoga instructor who as we learn wouldn’t mind stealing a wife, or perhaps, all of them.

Considerably a reunion of sorts it certainly is for Vaughn and Favreau, who are alumni of the ’90’s Los Angeles dating scene semi-classic “Swingers,” who actually co-wrote the movie together but allowed Peter Billingsley to direct (his second feature). Who would have guessed that in this reunion that, Vaughn is the cool-headed one and Favreau is the leering eye jerk? Actually, it makes sense that these guys scripted it this way, they’re having a lark playing against type. While their chummy-hostility is occasionally worth a chortle or two, hence coughed laughter, their clashed arguments about infidelity and “happy endings” can put a ruin on the idea of romantic comedy. If you hate romantic comedy, then you’ll wish that these two will just do some beer-swilling already.

When the dialogue does work, between any of the characters, it has a borderline self-aware jest that works until it teeters too far into sitcom territory. You come to realize that this sitcom level entertainment that just so happens to have attractive background scenery. COUPLES RETREAT is occasionally watchable sitcom-y junk, that asks itself to get by with its one-liners and ribald body language, but it never comes close to a summit of respectability. And finally noted, you may not be entirely convinced – at least in one case – that one of the couples looks believably married. Can you agree on which one? Forget romantic comedy generics, let’s root for a break-up.

GRADE: C