Random DVD Round-Up 1 - COUPLES RETREAT

COUPLE'S RETREAT is a truly piss-poor alleged comedy starring Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau and Faizon Love as middle-aged men frustrated by middle-aged family life. So they and their wives (Malin Akerman, Kristen Bell, Kristin Davis, Kali Hawk)) take off for a tropical island and a weekend of intense marital therapy run by a spectacularly mis-cast Jean Reno. I just don't know where to begin in terms of reviewing it. It's a movie so devoid of comedic inspiration that it simply falls flat in every scene. I didn't care about any of the characters. I didn't find any of the verbal or physical humour funny. And I wanted the film to end. Quickly. Save yourself the trouble and rent Favreau and Vaughn's genius early pic, SWINGERS instead, and remember a time when they were able to create genuinely sympathetic characters and laugh-out-loud funny lines.

COUPLES RETREAT was released in autumn 2010 and is now available to rent and own.

JUST MY LUCK - In which we are asked to believe that McFly are the hottest rock band in the universe

JUST MY LUCK is a weak romantic-comedy vehicle for Lindsay Lohan. The set-up is simple. Li-Lo plays a girl who has literally lived a charmed life. One day, at a masquerade ball, she kisses a guy who has been cursed with bad luck all his life. With that kiss, their fortunes change. The guy - played by Chris Pine (Anne Hathaway's squeeze in Princess Diaries 2) - becomes super lucky and Li-Lo becomes a loser. The movie then predictably follows the two of them as they fall in love with each other. That's it. Now, I'm not against the odd goof-ball teen flick that relies on an unbelievable premise. After all, I really liked She's The Man. But JUST MY LUCK fails on a number of levels. The movie contains not one single laugh, and depite being directed by the same guy who gave us Miss Congeniality, entirely fails to deliver a similar feel-good factor. I don't think the actors are at fault here - although the movie is stocked with more than its fair share of plastic OC rejects. Rather the mechanical grinding through the formula gives the whole production a rather sterile feel. The soul-less quality is magnified by the fact that the flick is a shameless merchandising tool for everything from the Hard Rock cafe to Tide washing up powder. And the biggest marketing ploy of all involves making Li-Lo's boyfriend the manager of, I kid you not, McFly. Frankly, it wasn't the fortune-changing-through-kissing plot line that had me incredulous so much as being asked to believe that McFly were about to kick off the greatest British invasion since The Beatles.

To summarise: you should not watch this movie unless you are a fan of McFly. In which case, you deserve what you get.

JUST MY LUCK is on release in the US, Australia and UK. It hits France on July 5th 2006, and Germany and Austria on August 17th.