There were four films that I wanted to see last, last weekend but because of a bunch of random reasons – I was coming down with a pretty nasty cold, there was a full hour between the movie times of the films I really wanted to see, I probably couldn’t have afforded to watch three movies anyway, among other things – I only got to see two.
Jake Kasdan (Bad Teacher)’s Sex Tape was the second one, and here’s the round-up.
Please note that there may be spoilers. Read at your own risk.
THE STORY:
There was a time when Annie (Cameron Diaz – The Other Woman) and Jay (Jason Segel – Forgetting Sarah Marshall) couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. Sadly, after a decade of marriage, two beautiful kids – Nell (Giselle Eisenberg – The Wolf of Wall Street) and Clive (Sebastian Hedges Thomas – Comrades), thriving careers as a mommy blogger and a radio dj respectively, they’ve found that they’ve grown apart phsysically. Deciding to spice things up a bit, they make a sex tape that accidentally gets uploaded to the internet. Everybody that they know – their parents, bestfiends Robby (Rob Corddry – Warm Bodies) and Tess (Ellie Kemper – 21 Jump Street), their son Howard (Harrison Holzer – The Discovers) and the potential buyer of Annie’s website Hank (Rob Lowe – Parks and Recreation) – gets a copy of the video and it is up to the couple to stop them from seeing it.
THE GOOD:
- Rob Lowe was sooo good in this movie. I almost fell off my seat when he started playing heavy rock music “to relax the nerves”. And then of course he pulled out the cocaine. Yes. I can definitely see why he chose to do this role; it was just so cooky and freakishly weird that was perfect for him!
- Jason Segel pretty much did the comedic heavy lifting in the movie. Granted, most of the stuff he did was more on the physical side, but hey, he’s really good at that.
- The Jack Black cameo. He didn’t do anything spectacular but his mere presence was a shock, ya know? At first it made no sense why he was there then ohhh, Jake Kasdan directed Orange County. Riiight.
- Robb Corddry and Ellie Kemper were pretty much hilarious in all of the scenes they were in. Makes me wonder if the movie would be better had they played the leads.
THE BAD:
- That they’re asking us to believe that Cameron Diaz has anything motherly about her. It was seriously pretty painful to watch her interact with those poor children.
- The lack of a mailman plot arc. They baited us enough with the damned idea, I was actually looking forward to that confrontation.
THE UGLY:
- The whole balckmail plot arc. It could have worked had it been properly executed – hints at the beginning and if the whole focus of the movie was to find out who the texter was, etc, etc. But it was tacked on more like an afterthought and the resolution was pretty lazy and as cheesy as it gets.
All in all Sex Tape was a bleh movie. Definitely not as good as its predecessor, which was a shame because in theory this movie should’ve been just as good as Bad Teacher. I guess what killed it for me was the fact that they’re trying to sell Cameron Diaz as a mom, which is, come on, something that she’s not talented enough to make believable. There’s something sad to be said when the supporting cast give more memorable performances than the leads.
THE VERDICT: 4.5/10. Skip it.
*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.
