Couples Retreat: Critic Reviews

Predictable, but humorous.

Thanks to Vaughn, Favreau, and the stray sharp lines that pop out of everyone else, the film at least offers the lively sound of egos that still know how to swing.

Couples Retreat is a comedy of exhaustion. But it is the comedy itself, in both concept and execution, that seems tired.

A loo book written by Pol Pot would have more laughs than this chillingly unfunny, cynically prefabricated non-comedy.

It's too bad Couples Retreat is so poorly written and conceived, given the talented cast and chemistry between Vaughn and pal Favreau. We're meant to relate to these hapless folks or laugh at their foibles, but more often we wince.

Why couldn't Couples Retreat have been lighthearted and zany throughout, instead of trying to push across a message about picket-fence monogamy?

Yes, there's pointed human comedy to be mined from the very real stresses of married life, but this bonehead idiots-in- paradise farce raises issues only to gloss them over.

Ever go on a vacation where most of the people around seem to be having more fun than you? Then you already know what it'll feel like to visit Couples Retreat.

You know those comedies that hit a little dry spell and have a hard time recovering? Couples Retreat has one that lasts about, oh, 90 minutes.

Greatly silly and unexpectedly wise at times.

Couples Retreat has an eye, and ear, for the way relationships fall apart terribly slowly and then all at once. What it lacks is a truly concentrated comedy punch, preferring instead to land a series of scattered jabs from the 16 arms of its eight leads.

It contains little comedy, except for free-standing one-liners, and no suspense, except for the timing of the obligatory reconciliation. It doesn't even make you think you'd like to visit its island paradise.

Though I enjoy nearly everyone on-screen in Couples Retreat, I found it pretty meager and more than a little depressing.

The various therapies -- talk, yoga, massage -- serve only to set up tired insult humor and smarmy sight gags.

Trouble in paradise. That's the overly familiar premise of this sun-poisoned comedy.

Couples Retreat is a pleasant, undemanding, middle-of-the-road comedy, and really, were you expecting anything else?

This is one of those films, like last week's Whip It and so many others of late, that looks like it was a lot fun to make. It's just not all that much fun to watch.

Couples Retreat plays like the NBA All-Star game: What seems like a dream-team exhibition of pros at the top of their game too often turns into an undisciplined mess.

Those involved got to spend weeks at a Bora Bora luxury resort; all we get is this not lousy but unmemorable tropical-vacation comedy.

Like most of Universal's offerings this year, you have to wonder exactly who (besides masochists) they thought would actually want to see Couples Retreat in a theater.

Couples, a sputtering if sporadically amusing misfire, packed a lot of actors off to a pretty location and gave them nothing funny or deep to do.

Beneath the ham acting and the relentless banter is a serious movie about relationships. We're being sold laughs, but a few sober thoughts are delivered.

There are also scenes, the disjointed kind that wander off aimlessly in the vague hope of finding a movie, not to mention a laugh.

Couples Retreat is neither funny nor honest. The exact opposite of a retreat, it's merely exhausting.

The acting is a mixed bag. Jon Favreau and Faizon Love, who never hit a false note, are the standouts.