Directed by: Jake Kasdan.
Written by: Kate Angelo and Jason Segel & Nicholas Stoller.
Starring: Cameron Diaz (Annie), Jason Segel (Jay), Rob Corddry (Robby), Ellie Kemper (Tess), Rob Lowe (Hank), Nat Faxon (Max), Nancy Lenehan (Linda), Giselle Eisenberg (Nell), Harrison Holzer (Howard), Sebastian Hedges Thomas (Clive).
The
premise of sex tape – that a long married couple with two kids film themselves
having sex, and then have to get copies of the video back from all their
friends and family – promises a raunchy, offensive sex comedy. This is doubly
true when you consider that the two stars and the director made Bad Teacher
together – which wasn’t a great movie, but certainly went for broke in terms of
potentially offensive, sexual humor. The most shocking thing then about Sex
Tape is how utterly it is. The film goes through the motions of being daring
and sexual, but is basically just a rather lame slapstick comedy where the
talented stars are stuck with a bunch of lame gags that generate very little in
the way of laughs. What makes matters worse is there are a few moments – mostly
small, quiet ones, that hint at the comedy this could have been had it went for
it.
The
film stars Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel as Annie and Jay – and like every other
married couple with kids in the comedies of this sort, they have really cool
jobs - she’s a blogger, about to sell her blog for big money, he works for a
record label, or radio station, or something – it’s music related anyway. As
the movie opens, the movie flashes back to college (I think) when Annie and Jay
first meet and screw like rabbits – any time and any place – until she gets
pregnant, and they get married. And then, of course, their sex lives grow dull
and stagnant. So one night to get the groove back, they film themselves having
sex, Instead of erasing the tape, Jay accidentally syncs it the cloud – and it
goes to all the iPads they have given away (which is apparently a hell of a lot
– why the hell don’t I know anyone who is giving away iPads. Because apparently
neither of them have any idea how technology works, they believe they have to
physically get back their iPads. That leads the pair to do some humiliating
things – and of course learn some lessons, grow together, etc.
Diaz
and Segel are fine comedic actors – and they give the movie their best shot,
but the film never really gels. Most of the movie moves at such a rapid pace
that the pair never have a chance to create characters that are realistic and
natural together. The rapid pace could have worked except for one major problem
– nothing much happens, it just happens really fast. The film moves from one
unfunny set piece to another and goes nowhere.
The
best moments are mainly throwaway, isolated incidents – I loved all the
paintings that adorn Rob Lowe’s walls for example. Lowe, as the head of the
company who wants to buy Annie’s blog, is actually probably the best one in the
movie – even if he is essentially riffing on his Parks & Recreation
persona. It can still be funny though.
But
most of Sex Tape just never really works – is never really funny. I think a
funny movie could be made out of the same basic material of Sex Tape, but it
would require the movie to take itself a little more seriously. Like most
Hollywood movies, it has a rather infantile view of sex – sex as imagined by
teenagers who have never really had sex. If it took itself a little more
seriously and given the comedy more of an edge – any edge really – perhaps it
could have been funny. Diaz, Segel and director Jake Kasdan are capable of doing
that. With Sex Tape, they simply didn’t deliver.
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