R-Rated comedies have received a shot in the arm as of late, with The Hangover and 21 Jump Street franchises leading the charge for excessive amounts of smuttiness mixed in with your laughs. And while the current crop has been surprisingly good to us, but not everything can be adults only gold, and there will always be a bad one in the bunch every so often. Right now, that dubious honour falls to Sex Tape.
Anna (Cameron Diaz) and Jay (Jason Segel) are a married couple who decide their sex life needs some major spicing. The solution they hit upon is to record a marathon love making session, with the idea being to erase the sex tape afterwards. But instead it is synced with several iPads Jay has given as gifts to friends and family, leaving quite the surprise for them when their tablets are next booted up. Thus begins a farcical race against time to delete every copy before anybody sees them.
The major problem with this movie is that it's just not that funny. There is a lot of humour to be mined from this concept, but the dull script lets pretty much every joke fall flat, or milks the ones that do work dry, like Annie's boss (Rob Lowe) and his obsession with Disney movies. It worked the first time, it didn't need to repeated four times in very quick succession. The movie also doesn't embrace the premise fully, never pushing the smuttiness as far as it can go, and it's attempts at being a rom-com are mind numbingly bland. The one note story struggles to maintain your interest, with the plot limping from one unbelievable scenario to another. You always get the feeling that more could be done with a scene, that a funny and interesting story is just waiting below the surface, but never gets the chance to break through.
Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel share none of the spark they had in Bad Teacher (also from director Jake Kasdan), and are totally mismatched here. Segel is especially flat, never flexing the impressive comedy muscles we know he has. He does show flashes of what he is capable of, especially when he is cursing The Cloud, but most of the time he feels subdued, like he is just going through the motions. Zero chemistry is exhibited between himself and Cameron Diaz, who after at least trying in the first act, resorts to phoning it in. The support also fail to make any sort of impression, and the movie spends far too much time on Rob Lowe, who isn't remotely entertaining.
A massive waste of a premise and talent, Sex Tape is a disappointment in every aspect. One that should be sent straight to the trash folder.
Anna (Cameron Diaz) and Jay (Jason Segel) are a married couple who decide their sex life needs some major spicing. The solution they hit upon is to record a marathon love making session, with the idea being to erase the sex tape afterwards. But instead it is synced with several iPads Jay has given as gifts to friends and family, leaving quite the surprise for them when their tablets are next booted up. Thus begins a farcical race against time to delete every copy before anybody sees them.
The major problem with this movie is that it's just not that funny. There is a lot of humour to be mined from this concept, but the dull script lets pretty much every joke fall flat, or milks the ones that do work dry, like Annie's boss (Rob Lowe) and his obsession with Disney movies. It worked the first time, it didn't need to repeated four times in very quick succession. The movie also doesn't embrace the premise fully, never pushing the smuttiness as far as it can go, and it's attempts at being a rom-com are mind numbingly bland. The one note story struggles to maintain your interest, with the plot limping from one unbelievable scenario to another. You always get the feeling that more could be done with a scene, that a funny and interesting story is just waiting below the surface, but never gets the chance to break through.
Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel share none of the spark they had in Bad Teacher (also from director Jake Kasdan), and are totally mismatched here. Segel is especially flat, never flexing the impressive comedy muscles we know he has. He does show flashes of what he is capable of, especially when he is cursing The Cloud, but most of the time he feels subdued, like he is just going through the motions. Zero chemistry is exhibited between himself and Cameron Diaz, who after at least trying in the first act, resorts to phoning it in. The support also fail to make any sort of impression, and the movie spends far too much time on Rob Lowe, who isn't remotely entertaining.
A massive waste of a premise and talent, Sex Tape is a disappointment in every aspect. One that should be sent straight to the trash folder.
