From the title of this movie, one can already presuppose that actually fairly nothing original or substantive can come from a film that calls itself What Happens in Vegas. Certainly the campaign’s been successful for the so-called Sin City (please, it hasn’t been ‘Sin City’ since Bugsy), but I prefer Reno’s “The biggest little mistake you’ll ever make” (or maybe that was an episode of Arrested Development). Personally, I’ve never really been a big Vegas guy, a whole lot of hype for a place where all there is to do is play cards and drink in the middle of the desert. But for whatever reason people are into it and I respect that…

…Until now. I think we’ve officially exhausted the storytelling device of people who go to Vegas, get loaded, wake up to their worst nightmare and find out later that the nightmare is their dream come true. Vegas officially jumped the shark when Britney married doofus number one there for 52 hours, before the start of the K-Fed debacle era. One would think that the lesson being so fresh in their minds that Joy (Cameron Diaz) and Jack (Ashton Kutcher) would not have fallen into the same trap. But - oh, look – Joy goes to Vegas to forget her unceremonious dumping by her fiancé and Jack, well, Jack is trying to keep his slacker streak going a few more weeks after being fired from his dad’s furniture making business.

Last week, I reviewed a movie called Made of Honor, which seemed to me like the gender-reverse remake of My Best Friend’s Wedding. Well I say to you that What Happens in Vegas… is the quickie Vegas version of another rushed to the alter, mismatched comedy released a couple of years ago called Just Married, which, as I’m sure you’ll recall, also starred Ashton Kutcher. But even that galling example of recycling aside, how many stories have been made from the boring, old recipe of drunken quickie Vegas marriage turning to hate between the couple once sober, which later turns to love as they get to know each other? What Happens… throws a $3 million jackpot into the mix as the plot glue that forces Joy and Jack to live together till they fall in love.

And they are such predictable characters to begin with. Joy is a perfectionist, stock broker that “makes plans to make plans.” She’s anal to the point just short of obsessive compulsive, but hey, that’s what makes her funny. And then there’s Jack… Good, old Jack. He’s so charmingly adolescent with the no responsibilities lifestyle and the bar in the living room and the hanging around all day doing nothing. Of course, there are the best friends too: the ones who connive and advise and just generally offer up random comic relief for the leads as they deal with the heavy-duty romantic drama.

Indeed, it’s the best friends played by Lake Bell and Rob Corddry that do the scene stealing, Corddry especially who manages to go barely 10 minutes into the film before losing his pants and about 20 minutes before taking of his shirt. But seriously, he is the funniest thing about this movie, a true spark of comedic timing and delivery in the midst of many stale jokes about how the stereotypes of men and women are vastly different. Including, wait for it, a scene where Joy demonstrates the down function of the toilet seat. Oh snap! No one’s ever made a joke about how men leave the toilet seat up before – take that male oppression. Honestly, this is some pretty weak material, and if there is any reason that a laugh or two comes out it’s purely because of the comic timing of the actors. And yes, that includes Kutcher and Diaz, who are saddled with the weakest material.

All-in-all, What Happens in Vegas… turns out better than Made of Honor, but that itself is not a compliment and the movie remains the latest in a line of underwhelming romantic comedies to have some out recently. But honestly, whether or not this thing had stayed in Vegas or not, really doesn’t have an impact on the rest of us anyway.