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What Happens in Vegas

Iron Man

Son of Rambow

Baby Mama

The Life Before Her Eyes

The Visitor

Sex and Death 101

The Grand

Shine A Light

21

Drillbit Taylor

"Newlymets" Jack (Ashton Kutcher) and Joy (Cameron Diaz) enjoy spontaneous connubial bliss.

For anyone who's paid the slightest attention to any American romantic comedy made in, oh, say, the last 70 years, little that happens in What Happens in Vegas will come as a jolt. Bubbly Cameron Diaz plays Joy, a driven Wall Street trader recently dumped by her fiancé, and eternal boy-man Ashton Kutcher is Jack, who has been canned from a job by his own father. The plot conspires for them to meet cute and, after a wild, drunken night, wake up wed and loathing each other in Las Vegas. The situation worsens when a lucky quarter wins them a $3 million jackpot and a judge sentences them to six months of cohabitation before either can claim their half of the prize.

The honeymoon's over for Joy and Jack.

In classic romantic comedy tradition, the movie, frantically directed by Tom Vaughn (Starter For 10) from a script by Dana Fox (The Wedding Date), supplies Diaz and Kutcher with wanna-be scene-stealing sidekicks (Rob Corddry, Lake Bell), a no-nonsense marriage counselor (Queen Latifah) and a stacked deck of plot twists from earlier, more stylish movies. Still, even at its most by-the-numbers, What Happens in Vegas lets Diaz cut loose with a welcome blast of sexy, good-natured energy, and her leading man occasionally appears to be having such a good time with her that he stops twitching and making the "cute" faces that alienate those who haven't swilled the Kutcher Kool-Aid. Like the movie itself, both actors simply appear to be out to give the audience a raucous time, and that at least scores some points for goodwill alone.

by Stephen Rebello

Credit: K.C. Bailey/™&©2008 Twentieth Century Fox and Regency Enterprises. All rights reserved.