I was bragging yesterday to some friends as we were sitting on the beach near Half Moon Bay that I get to watch a lot of movies these days and that I kind of review them in this blog. So that reminded me of the fact that I saw the movie What Happens in Vegas the other day with my wife on our date night, and that I hadn't reviewed it yet. I guess the reason why I hadn't reviewed it yet was because it was a pretty uninteresting and unmemorable movie. In fact, I needed to look up the name online to even remember what I saw! Not an auspicious start to any review...
Now, don't get me wrong: I love the concept of this movie, and I love Las Vegas. I was introduced to Las Vegas late in my life (post 33 years old, in fact), and on my way there with friends of both sexes was told to pinky swear (also a new concept) that what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas. And Cameron Diaz is kind of a babe, so there is that too. But the movie didn't really move me, and at the end I walked away thinking I should have just waited till it came out on DVD. But since I have been on this movie roll, I had to go, and so that was that.
The movie starts by introducing us to the two main characters, a likeable but unworldly Cameron Diaz and her foil, Aston Kutcher (who I also just looked up since I could not remember his name) who have misadventures in NYC and wind up in Vegas to let their hair down a bit. The funniest bits take place in their initial meetings in the hotel room, and subsequent night out on the town. Lo and behold, they get married in a drunken misadventure, and wake up the next morning with one of those "who the hell is this next to me" feelings - you know the kind (if your honest, and me). So, they immediately realize they are not right for each other, decide to annul the marriage, but end up winning $3 million dollars in a progressive slot machine and need to stay together. The rest of the movie is full of the usual "getting to know you scenes" in which they hate each other, then learn to understand each other, then finally figure out they are actually perfect for each other in a sappy, Hollywoodesque type of long drawn out ending.
I guess I would sum it up likes this: what starts out as a guy movie, ends up (somewhere less than halfway through) as a chick flick. So, I guess everyone wins, kind of, although what I really think is everyone goes away half-satisfied. Kind of like going to Vegas and winning a lot of money at the very end once you have pretty much busted out the first few days, so that you end up "even." So you leave Vegas with this unsatisfying feeling because if you had won earlier, you could have really lived it up, but since you won late, you are just happy to get out of there "alive."
And that is how this movie made me feel.