Couples Retreat (2009)

Although I like almost all of the actors in this movie, I found it to be a dud. Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Kristin Davis and Kristin Bell as well as a host of others starred.

The premise of this film is that Cynthia and Jason (Bell and Bateman) have announced to their friends that they have decided to divorce and that they are going to go on a trip to Bora Bora to get counseling. Their friends, happily married Dave and Ronnie (Vaughn and Akerman), married high school sweethearts Joey and Lucy (Favreau and Davis) and just dating Shane and Trudy (Love and Hawk) eventually agree to go with them with the idea that they will be able to just go and have fun. Wrong. When they arrive, they are told that they will all be required to participate in the counseling sessions or they must leave. They also find out that the "fun" side of the island, is just across the bay from them. Jean Reno (so good in "The Professional") makes an appearance as a sort of Love Guru that was just cheesy. There were also a couple of small scenes that included Dave and Ronnie's two children that didn't really have any purpose in the movie except to up the cute factor for a few moments.

From here everything is totally predictable. Everything from the usual massage/erection jokes, to the hunky (and slightly creepy) yoga instructor hitting on the women as their husbands look on, to the "we all have problems and/or issues" speech at the end.

I think that I only laughed aloud once throughout this whole movie. However, if you just want to get away for a bit, you might like this movie. My movie going companions seemed to enjoy this movie, but I found myself looking around the theater at other people rather than watching the movie.

I read that Vaughn and Favreau co-wrote this movie along with someone else. This movie was also directed by the star of one of my favorite Christmas movies of all time, "A Christmas Story's" Peter Billingsly who played Ralphie (He'll shoot his eye out!!!!). Vaughn and Favreau have been in several movies together including their most famous movie together to date, "Swingers" (They were SO money!).

PG-13 I give this move TWO AND A HALF STARS.


Here is one of my favorite clips ever!