“It’s like a screensaver!” says John Favreau’s character upon arriving at a stunning Island resort in Couples Retreat, a quip that perfectly encapsulates my attitude towards the film overall. Just like a screensaver, Couples Retreat is the kind of film you want to occupy the screen when you’re not around. It’s little more than a plodding slideshow of gorgeous scenery and equally as gorgeous people, with far too much (dubious) rom and not nearly enough com. If only bringing a premature end to its insufferable 110 minute runtime just meant wiggling the mouse.

Penned by the once-funny Vince Vaughn, and the better-off-directing-Iron Man John Fevreau, it’s the kind of film that is happy to settle for shallow laughs. The material flounders at the hands of first time director Peter Billingsley, who might know how to frame a pretty shot, but not a funny one.

Vaughn and Malin Akerman head off the ensemble cast as idyllic couple Dave and Ronnie, who of their friends, are the only two that are still happily married. Childhood sweethearts Joey (Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis) are now only together for the sake of their teenage daughter, while Shane (Faizon Love) has recently divorced with his wife and is now trying to keep up with 20 year-old Trudy (Kali Hawk).

They’re given an enticing proposition by overly organised couple Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell), who are on the brink of divorce, but believe their marriage can be saved by a week at an exotic couples retreat called Eden (a fictitious resort on the French-Polynesian island of Bora Bora). But to afford the trip, they need to take advantage of the resort’s group package, and thus rope their friends in by promising it’ll be a week of relaxing fun in the sun. Once they arrive, however, the therapy sessions are revealed to be mandatory, and at the hands of the island’s relationship ‘sensei’ Marcel (Jean Reno), they must endure through a week of torturous couple building exercises. And so must we.

You’ll be lucky to laugh more than a couple of times throughout the film, which foolishly attempts low-brow humour within the confines of an M rating, when it really needs the extra bite only an MA15+ rating can allow (i.e. Forgetting Sarah Marshall).  While some one-liners hit their mark, the two biggest cracks at physical comedy are horrendously weak; one sees Vaughn incessantly whinge about surviving a shark “attack”, while the other sees a hunky Spaniard instructor (Carlos Ponce) grind his Speedo-clad privates against the women during Yoga class. It’s funny for about thirty seconds, but it insists on panning out for another five minutes.

It appears Favreau wrote the best material for himself, while everyone else seems to have signed-on as cast members just to go on paid vacation to Bora Bora. Vaughn has been playing the same character for a decade now, yet the last time it worked for him was in 2005’s Wedding Crashers. He needs to revisit the 90’s and start experimenting with genres. Elsewhere, Bateman proves once again that he needs the writers of Arrested Development to be truly funny and Jean Reno’s Zen-like character in support leaves absolutely no impression.

Couples Retreat is by no means the worst film of the year –it’s got nothing on Eddie Murphy’s latest disaster Imagine That – but it’s certainly not the cinematic escape it should have been. It needlessly serves up four rom-coms for the price of one, each preaching the same message about how relationships need constant love and attention. A worthy message, for sure, but since none of these four relationships feel even slightly authentic, it doesn’t pay-off. It’s a bit like getting relationship advice from a clown. A really, really unfunny one.

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