Big Picture Big Sound

Love Hangover

Ah, Las Vegas. Where prince and pauper alike come to throw their cares, money and a few brain cells away. "What Happens in Vegas" tells the story of two incompatible strangers who, after a night of drunken debauchery, find themselves married. After being publicly dumped by her stodgy fiancé, Joy (Cameron Diaz) travels to Sin City to drown her sorrows. There, she bumps into Jack (Ashton Kutcher), who is similarly trying to forget his woes after being fired from his father's cabinet company. Type-A commodities trader Joy and slacker Jack don't get along at first, but after several shots they start to warm up to one another. After a few hours of too much tequila and drunken over-sharing, Joy wakes up in Jack's bed with a ring on her finger.

Hung over and experiencing the kind of regret that cannot be eased by breakfast meats in the casino buffet, Jack and Joy mutually decide to call it quits. But not before a casual spin of the slot machines wins them a cool $3,000,000. Jack's spin on Joy's quarter. Still married, they are, technically, both entitled to a share. Back home in New York, Joy and Jack go to court in an attempt to dissolve their union and split up the cash. Their curmudgeonly judge (Dennis Miller) has other plans. Fed up with these kids today and their quickie divorces, Judge Whopper decides to teach the irresponsible couple a lesson. Freezing their winnings, he orders Joy and Jack to live as a married couple for six months, forcing them to live together and attend weekly counseling sessions.

Now at odds with each other over the cash and the forced co-habitation, Joy and Jack verbally spar and struggle to wear each other out. After realizing that if one of them cheats or doesn't show up for counseling sessions, the other one could win all the cash, each tries elaborate schemes of one-upmanship to get the other to break down. In the meantime, Joy and Jack fight over issues familiar to most newlyweds – particularly those involving bathroom time and toilet seat position. But will all of their fussing and fighting get in the way of true love? It isn't hard to guess.

As the amiable (and aimless) layabout, Jack, Kutcher finally seems able to tread the line between comic buffoonery and earnest leading man. While having lost none of his ability to act the obnoxious man-child, he's able to temper it enough to make Jack a viable romantic lead. By bringing it down a few notches, he gives his character a degree of range and depth (or at least as much as he can for this type of film). Like Jack, you can almost see Kutcher transform from boy to man through the course of the film.

Diaz, unfortunately, doesn't fare as well. While a capable physical comedienne, her incessant, maniacal giggling not only wears on the viewer, it runs completely counter to her character. While Joy is meant to be an uptight control freak, Diaz seems incapable of portraying any kind of discipline and focus. From the very first frame, she looks and acts every inch the freewheeling party girl. So much so – caked in self-tanner and looking like she just smoked a carton of Newports – she seems to have lost the fresh-faced goofiness and charm that made her tolerable in films like "There's Something About Mary."

As Diaz and Kutcher work themselves into a comedic frenzy, the biggest laughs are provided by the film's second bananas, Lake Bell and Rob Corddry. As Joy and Jack's best friends, Tipper and Steve "Hater" Hader (respectively), they don't need to work as hard for laughs. Instead, they take a stealth approach, delivering their lines with impeccable timing and creativity before completely stealing the show in the film's closing gags.

The best thing that can be said about "What Happens in Vegas" is that it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. It's complete farce – nothing more, nothing less. At its worst, it's formulaic and a little grating. In its best moments, it's a throwback to the slapstick comedies of the 30s and 40s. And while Diaz & Kutcher are not in the same league as Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, they do at times achieve a similar combative chemistry and physical humor. All told, "What Happens in Vegas" is a lot like the city for which it's named – boisterous, silly and probably a lot more fun when intoxicated.