Couples Retreat

Editorial

To avoid paying for a holiday to hell, don't see Couples Retreat. A prime contender for 2009's Worst Film, this star-studded but startlingly drab "comedy" is the kind of terrible trip you pray will be over long before it's time to go home. Swingers' amigos Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau (with Dana Fox) wrote what quickly reveals itself to be a wafer-thin excuse for they and another cool cat (Jason Bateman) to hang out on location in Bora Bora with Kristen Bell, Malin Akerman, and Sex And The City's Kristin Davis. 

Vaughn and Favreau's Couples Retreat presents no other reason for its creation, as the svelte actresses and their not-so-svelte male co-stars trudge through a slew of bland or irritating episodes which frequently forget they're meant to be part of a comedy.

When the fictitious Eden Resort – run by alternative-guru-by-numbers Jean Reno – forces our four couples to focus on their relationships, the therapy sessions and group activities don't just wanly try to get all deep and meaningful. They also get needlessly boring, and director Peter Billingsley allows unfunny sequences to get unfunnier as dead horses are repeatedly flogged.

A sexified yoga session (with a Fabio-ish instructor, a la Hank Azaria in Along Came Polly) is supposed to be bawdy and hysterical but it has the spark and smarts of a used matchstick. Same goes for each partnership, as none of the star couples produce the chemistry or passion to support the absurdly neat conclusion.

Beyond the female leads' bikini-enhanced attributes, the considerable cast won't attract anything but your scorn, as their ability to make us laugh must have taken a vacation elsewhere. The collective shipwreck that this creates makes Four Christmases, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past and The Ugly Truth almost worth a return visit.

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Read our interview with Couples Retreat star Faizon Love