Dana Tugs

RETIREMENT couples - REVIEW

7.5 out of 10

When you watch a film like Couples Retreat, it is important to realize that you see are not high art. This is not a film that will be remembered come awards season. This is not a film that will be remembered as a classic in thirty years. Couples Retreat is an amiable relationship Breezy comedy that makes a great big laughs and even a few tugs on the heart along the path. The talented cast, including Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman and Jon Favreau are all fine actors who excel at sounding laughs out of every situation the characters are thrown for.

Co-written by stars Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau (with Dana Fox), retirement is about four couples who go on vacation to a holistic approach, plush, tropical resort all in an effort to rescue one of their weddings. The only caveat to this paradise on earth is that each couple must participate in intensive skills building exercises created by the French, New Age guru, Marcel (a goofy Jean Reno), something the three "healthy" couples do not go account when they take on the trip. If they do not participate in the exercises, they will be forced to leave the island paradise. At first they were outraged at the idea of therapy, but they are seduced by their classy environment and they want to support their friends who need advice, they decide to stay. The exercises, although predictable wacky, are much more fun than you'd expect thanks to strong comic skills of the cast and a script packed with hilarious, witty lines.

After attending a few sessions, each couple learns that their relationships are not quite what they thought. Dave (Vaughn) and Ronnie (Malin Ackerman) are overworked parents who continue to enjoy life. Dave works twelve hours a day and by time he gets home, he did not have the energy to devote to Ronnie, who do not expect much from him at all. They lead what they believe to be a normal life and to the surface they are happy. They learn very quickly that there is more than just a relationship to survive and they need to take more time out of life to enjoy each other. Ackerman and Vaughn share a simple chemistry and credible as the parents in difficulty. Vaughn is his motor mouth usually self (this is not a complaint) and is the master of talk in circles around him hilarious results. attack his concern during a meeting with the sharks is invaluable and almost any line that pushes Vaughn hits its mark.

Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell plays Jason and Cynthia, who have been tried unsuccessfully to conceive for one year. They are both individuals who appear to be a tight match made in heaven, but after the break their eight-year marriage to the tables and graphs presented in power point, they discussed a divorce. It was their idea to visit the station to see if their therapeutic marriage is worth saving. Bateman and Bell play well with each other, both as straight men for the antics of their co-stars. Seriously, is there a better man right there that Jason Bateman? There is a reason why it appears in four films (Couples Retreat, Abstract, Up in the Air and the invention lies) in the second half of 2009. After toiling in failed sitcom after sitcom failed, the pleasure of seeing Bateman continue to capitalize on his brilliant work on the delightfully absurd Series, Arrested Development.

Joey (Favreau) and Lucy (Kristen Davis) are married since high school because she was accidentally up. They do not even like each other and are always together for the sole benefit of their teenage daughter. They do not want to ski.