Couples Retreat
Vince Vaughn leads an all-star cast in the laugh-out-loud comedy about eight friends whose vacation in paradise is one they’ll never forget. Their group-rate vacation comes at a price when they discover that participation in the resort’s unconventional couples therapy activities is anything but optional. Co-starring Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Faizon Love, Kristin Davis, Kristen Bell and Malin Akerman, Couples Retreat is a hilarious party in paradise, loaded with laughter and fun!Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau team up after their ’90s career-making hit, Swingers, to write and costar in Couples Retreat, a romantic comedy that’s heavy on the satire, but is also knowing and wry, as Swingers is at its best. Vaughn and Favreau are joined in the top-notch cast by the always engaging Kristin Bell (whose appearance with Vaughn, in a romantic tropical setting, may remind viewers of Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Jason Bateman, Kristin Davis (Sex and the City), Faizon Love, and Jean Reno. Fans of romantic comedies, and comedies of manners, will be delighted at the snappy interaction among the actors, and the zingers delivered by the script. “You are not buying some 20-year-old broad a motorcycle!” yells Vaughn’s character, Dave, to Love’s character, Shane, who’s having an early midlife crisis. “She’s a kid! Buy her a Hello Kitty book!” Turns out that all the couples in Dave and Shane’s circle are having issues, and decide to take a group tropical vacation. Ah, but there’s a catch: the island getaway comes with mandatory couples counseling and bonding events. Most of the film’s laughs come from cringe-worthy fish-out-of-water moments, though there are some pretty great fish-in-water moments, too: Dave begins to panic during a test involving swimming with sharks. “It’s time to get the gun, and shoot some fish!” Reno is also a standout, as the unctuous New Age-y director of the retreat, fearless in spewing half-nonsense yet having the almost admirable courage to stand behind his convictions. The film was directed with a light hand by Peter Billingsley, who starred as young Ralphie in A Christmas Story, and who has acted with Vaughn in Four Christmases and The Break-Up. And somehow, among the lunacy and the beauty of nature, friends and soulmates may just find the way back to each other. Just steer clear of the Jet Skis. –A.T. Hurley
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(out of 112 reviews)
Review by Lyric for Couples Retreat
Rating:
I had been wanting to see this movie for a long time and finally went to see it two nights ago. After reading some of the bad reviews, the critics rating the movie a “C” and only 2 stars from [...], I was a bit skeptical. I forgot about the ratings and decided to see the movie anyway.
I laughed throughout the whole movie, as well as the audience. There were younger people (early 20′s), 30′s – 40′s, as well as a couple who were around the age of 60 in the audience. The elderly couple was sitting in front of me and as far as I could tell, they had a blast.
Despite the reviews of the critics and some viewers, I enjoyed this movie. I don’t want to give any of the movie away but it’s a laid back, hilarious story of one couple needing to work on their marriage and three other couples that wind up in the middle of all the chaos. There are different struggles and adventures that happen throughout the movie. As a poster had previously stated, it shows how different men and women truly are. This film also shows real life situations and things that come up in relationships and marriages often these days. Even though it’s a “funny film”, there are a few aspects of the movie that had the audience “aww’ing” but then belching out with screams and laughter right after.
If you’ve been wanting to see this movie, are a Vince Vaughn fan, or just need a good comedy (yes men, don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll laugh at the movie just as much, if not more) – I would definitely recommend this film.
This is NOT recommended to watch with children in the room nor taking them to the movie theater to see it with you.
Review by Medusa for Couples Retreat
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You can glimpse the plot of the movie from the title, it is exactly what it says, only completely lame with over-the-hill actors getting richer while wasting our money! I wonder why some people think empty acting can be funny. What happened to smart jokes, even silly jokes that will leave you breathless? Having Vince Vaughn in this movie is a total insult to him; another example how having funny people in a stupid movie doesn’t make it funnier!
Review by Jason for Couples Retreat
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Directed by Peter Billingsley (Ralphie, Christmas Story), Couples Retreat is essentially a reason for Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau to take a vacation to a tropical paradise. Along the way they decided to make a movie. Conveniently enough, the movie is about friends and their spouses taking a vacation.
When PowerPoint Ranger Jason (Jason Bateman) and his wife Ronnie (Malin Akerman) start to have problems in their relationship – most likely brought on by their OCD and obsession with slideshows – they drag fellow couples Dave (Vince Vaughn) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell), Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis), & Shane (Faizon Love) and his new fling to Eden, a vacation hot-spot for couples-building that looks like a screen saver, with promises of jet-skiing and beachside alcoholic drinks. Unfortunately for them, they are going to Eden West, a place for married couples to get new-age counseling with team-building, psychiatry, trust exercises and oddball philosophy involving early awakenings and shark adventures. What it’s lacking, however, is fun; it’s lacking Eden East, the singles side of the island. As contrived and predictable as this is, you already know where this is going.
Missing the “are you for scuba”-vibe from Along Came Polly, I spent the majority of the movie, and especially the trailer highlight shark scene – one claimed by many as the most comical – wishing for a repeat of the shark scene from The Beach.
Despite the cast’s obvious chemistry and solid acting, there was just too much kvetching about relationship quandaries to hold throughout the movie, and very little comedy for the mortar. As I’ve commented on another’s review, the reason the rom-coms lose steam in the last act is the requirement to learn heart warming lessons. Made all the more unbelievable because the lessons are learned at a party on Eden East, a place and event just as vacuous as the movie itself. I guess my appreciation for the cast set me up for failure, and potential was not met.
Jason Elin
Review by Antoinette D. Boswell for Couples Retreat
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I had heard a lot of negative things about this movie. But if one believes others views of movies, before seeing it themselves, sometimes you loose. The movie was great, absolutely great. My husband and some friends watched it back to back and had many laughs. Please don’t believe what others say check things out for yourself.
Review by Tommy Morais for Couples Retreat
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Earning over 160 millions in theaters Couples retreat looks seems like a good idea on paper and even a potentially great comedy however, the resulting film is not as good as maybe it could have been. Vince Vaughn co-wrote the script and I feel that it was much better than the film turned out to be. Despite a talented cast of actors the movie is not as fun to watch as it should really be and leaves much to be desired. I got a few laughs out of Vaughn and Jon Favreau especially and liked Kristen Bell’s acting as always but it seems that even those actors couldn’t make anything great out of the script. I thought I’d ignore the negative reviews given to this movie give it a chance and enjoy it for what it was.
Jason and Cynthia invite other couples to their house to give them a presentation on Eden Island to interest them in a vacation. They announce that things aren’t going so well with their own couple and are considering divorce; this will be a therapeutically vacation to them and is a chance for them to turn things around. While Jason and Cynthia work on their relationship and go in couple therapy the other couples are free to enjoy the Island’s fun activities. After much arguing the couples all agree to go. When they arrive on Eden they are disappointed to learn that they all have to go through couple therapy which is not what they expected. The idea of sending four couples on an Island vacation mixed up with a few troubles here and there seemed like a somewhat enjoyable movie. Some moments were moderately funny and others came out to be not funny at all, I think some things supposed to make the audience laugh didn’t work as thought out. I felt some parts of the movie dragged on and contributed to the movie receiving negative reviews.
It’s not a horrible movie neither is it excellent, it’s a little had to define and ranks somewhere between the two. It does have its fun parts that’s for sure and some enjoyable moments but as far as this comedy go it’s not really worth more than a rental. You could do a lot worse than rent this movie on a boring night but you could also do much better as well. I checked it out despite some negative reviews because I thought the cast was good and the story seemed good, I was curious about it. It’s not all bad, it’s certainly entertaining but I expected a little better to be honest. 2 and half stars for this one.