★
“Sex Tape.” You can probably already gather what this film
will entail just based on the name. Perhaps I have a minor spoiler or two
toward the end of this review. But let’s be honest: you already know how this
film begins and ends and everything else in between just from watching the
trailer. But my star rating says it all: “Sex Tape” is just bad.
The movie stars Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel as Annie and
Jay, a couple of married sex addicts who aren’t too pleased with the way their
life has gone since they aren’t able to engage in sexual congress as much as
they would like. Their married lives have gotten in the way of their ability to
fornicate whenever the mood strikes them. They both have jobs. Annie writes for
a mommy-centric blog that’s about to be bought out by some kind of family
company. It’s never fully explained what the company does. All we know is Rob
Lowe runs the company. Jay works for a radio station I suppose (again, it’s
never really fully explained). He gets a ton of free iPads and gives all his
old ones out to friends, family, and the mailman with musical playlists he’s
super proud about.
Annie bemoans on her blog about losing the spark of sex and
wonders how to get it back. Well, it’s not a spark that’s been lost. It’s
called being married with children and being busy. So right off the bat, they
lost me. Are we to understand that this good-looking couple with careers and
kids aren’t happy because they can’t find the time to fit in a little
intercourse? The marriage doesn’t appear to be falling apart, they just want to
have some fun like the used to before kids came along. Right up front, act one
fails to convincingly draw the audience into their personal issues.
After Annie thinks she sold her blog to Rob Lowe’s company,
she and Jay decide to celebrate. They drop the kids off with Annie’s mom (Nancy
Lenehan) and get ready for a night of sexual adventures. Unfortunately, they’re
out of practice so things don’t really go too well for them. They start
drinking and decide they should tape themselves with the iPad. After three
drunken hours of wild fun, Annie asks Jay to erase the video from the iPad. Jay
doesn’t, and the video ends up getting synched up with all the other iPads he
handed out to friends, family, and the mailman. A text from an unknown number
congratulating them on the video has them very concerned about who else has the
video. They set out on a nightlong adventure to retrieve the iPad’s from their
friends before more people see it. They enlist the help of their friends Robby
and Tess (Rob Corddry and Ellie Kemper) to help them out, even though they
really enjoyed the video.
A premise this simple and asinine makes for a very
predictable film. I could tell you how it turns out, but you already know. And
how is this film not funnier? You would think a movie starring Jason Segel
about a missing sex tape filled with sex jokes would be funny. It’s not. The
screenplay from Kate Angelo, Segel, and Nicholas Stoller is filled with every
cliché in the screenwriting book (or perhaps, the how-not-to-write-a-screenplay
book).
This seems to be a bit of a one-off for director Jake
Kasdan. His work on previous films suck as “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” and
“Bad Teacher” has not been exceptional, but merely acceptable. He completely
misfires with “Sex Tape.” There’s an overall theme that his film tries to
portray, but it’s never really tied together with the rest of the plotline.
There’s that ‘ah-ha’ moment up toward the end with some nice dialogue that
talks about what we all learned, but it doesn’t tie in with the set up we were
given at the beginning.
The whole idea is that this couple needs to complete their
adventure before being sexually attracted to one another again. But I never
bought that idea. They are in love. They are attracted to each other. They just
get wrapped up in this little thing known as life. Things that were once
important to you aren’t as important as you grow older. So the film should be
about growing up. Instead it’s about trying to find a certain spark again,
which I don’t believe these characters ever lost.
Maybe you’re sitting there thinking I’m being too critical
about a movie called “Sex Tape,” but I don’t think I’m out of line. Too often
we find movies today that aren’t well developed. They’re rushed through story
departments just because they have a high concept and an A-list star attached.
And when you rush a script through like that, you end up missing some of the
basic pillars of story structure. And apparently you lose out on good jokes
too. How is this movie not funnier? Better jokes would have made this film at
least a little tolerable. But at only 94 minutes in length, the pain and misery
doesn’t last long.
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