Couples Retreat

Directed by Peter Billingsley

(PG-13)

**

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Four Chicago couples get unwanted advice at a tropical resort.

Couples Retreat is the “opposite of a retreat—it’s merely exhausting,” said Stephanie Zacharek in Salon.com. In this utterly unimaginative comedy, a husband and wife having trouble conceiving (Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell) ask their friends to come along to a couples resort designed to mend marriages. The other couples—whose members include Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, and Kristin Davis—don’t realize that the counseling is mandatory. As they participate in team-building exercises, it becomes clear that Couples Retreat is set not at a tropical resort but “in a world of marital clichés,” said Dan Zak in The Washington Post. The alpha males bond over Budweisers, while their hot wives snivel and sip Chardonnay. The film coasts on “foreign accents, racial stereotypes, lemon sharks, Speedos, and inopportune erections.” That’s especially disappointing considering that Vaughn and Favreau—usually reliable funnymen—co-wrote the script. Middle age “seems to have tamed these two” quipsters, said Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News. Lucky for them, the film’s “likable cast” provides enough occasional chuckles to save Couples Retreat from becoming a total “holiday from hell.”