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Starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz as Jack and Joy, a slacker and a workaholic who drunkenly meet, mate and marry during a Sin City spree, What Happens in Vegas . . . boasts the not inconsiderable appeal of good-looking people having a good time - even while having a bad time.
The story follows the outline of a familiar nursery rhyme.
Jack and Joy
Went out to toy
With all the sights of Vegas.
Jack swilled Scotch
And did debauch
Drunk Joy, who got courageous.
When Jack and Joy sober up in New York, they file for annulment. Nuh-uh, rules Judge Whopper (Dennis Miller), who sentences the impulse twins to six months "hard marriage." If either fails to comply, s/he will not share joint custody of a $3 million slots jackpot that Jack won with Joy's quarter.
So, there they are. He, shaggy and goofy as an oversized Newfoundland pup; she, wiry and tense as an overbred whippet. Will these opposites find a way to share a kennel without nipping at each other? Not really, and therein lies the film's agreeable, if predictable, humor.
Prior to Joy's weekend in Vegas, the finicky commodities trader was booted unceremoniously from her digs. Thus, even more punishing for her than having to live with Jack is having to share his bachelor pad, maintained about as nicely as a filling-station restroom.
For Jack, the situation is equally dire. An underachieving furniture-maker lately fired from his job, Jack is emasculated by his high-achieving spouse.
Kutcher, the underrated comedian and charm machine who did fine work in Guess Who? and A Lot Like Love, has been at the edge of superstardom for so long that I will repeat of his work here: Yesterday's jackass is destined to be tomorrow's Tom Hanks.
Similarly Diaz, the perhaps overrated lust object and charm machine, here creates another cocktail of toughness and vulnerability, the necessary ingredients for the rom-com heroine in a formula film. Their chemistry goes like this: He cleans up real nice; she dirties down with gusto.
The stars are supported, hilariously, by Lake Bell as Joy's snarkastic best friend and Rob Corddry, comic-relief pitcher from the Jon Stewart bullpen, as Jack's. Queen Latifah (as a marriage counselor) and Dennis Farina (as Joy's boss) round out an affable cast.
Directed by Tom Vaughan. With Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher, Lake Bell, Rob Corddry and Queen Latifah. Distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Running time: 1 hour, 39 mins.
Parent's guide: PG-13 (sexual candor, profanity, drug references, bathroom humor)
Playing at: area theaters
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