What the Hell Actually Happens in Vegas?

I am baffled at how people are talking about this movie

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Monday, May 5th 2008 at 11:14 AM

Ashton and Cameron laugh as they spend your money!

The trailer for Fox's What Happens in Vegas had me wanting to kill myself. I had not seen it until last week when it showed before my screening of Deception. Talk about a double-dip of crap. However, it appears the trailer may be showing everything I would consider bad about the movie and saving what is good for the theater.

There have been plenty of speculative articles wondering which film will take the #2 spot this weekend; What Happens in Vegas or Speed Racer? It's an interesting question, and it is hard to evaluate since you can't really track Speed Racer since I have no idea how they would be able to track the interest little kids have in this film. If you ask Variety's Todd McCarthy (a reviewer whose opinions I actually loathe) you would think it is going to eat up money:

General audiences worldwide look to make this Warner Bros. release a substantial hit in all formats, from IMAX to eventual homeview sales, with extra coin assured from moppets of a certain age who require repeat viewings.

However, Steve Mason at Fantasy Moguls is convinced industry tracking is correct for the film and it may struggle to make $35 million. Is that enough to beat out What Happens in Vegas while Iron Man is likely to destroy the box-office yet again?

First off, What Happens in Vegas has the worst trailer I have ever seen, that is if Fox wants to encourage thinking adults to see their movie. Luckily for Fox they don't give two shits about thinking adults as the PG-13 rating clearly defines and they are going for the dullard audiences interested in pee jokes and popcorn down the pants gags (I am sad to admit a friend of mine is actually interested in all of this). However, there may be more to this film than the trailer actually offers.

Joe Leydon, another Variety reviewer I have a hard time ever agreeing with (he's a bit too accepting) has just posted his review of Vegas and had this to say:

In fact, the roots of this new pic can be traced back to screwball comedies of the '30s and '40s. The big difference — well, OK, one of several big differences — between "Vegas" and those fast-paced comedy classics is that "Vegas" actually becomes more enjoyable as it tamps down the over-the-top helter-skelter of its early scenes.

Leydon obviously dates himself with the '30s and '40s screwball comedy line, but the detail I focus on is when he says it "becomes more enjoyable as it tamps down the over-the-top helter-skelter of its early scenes," which I take to mean, Once all the bullshit the trailer showed us is out of the way this film is actually decent. The rest of his review boils down to giving the movie a pass, but that one line has me thinking it may actually be a slightly bigger box-office draw than I originally expected and may have legs for more than one weekend as Made of Honor has obviously vanished from the scene after being trampled by the man of iron.

Time will soon tell what both Speed Racer and Vegas hold. I am seeing Speed Racer tomorrow and plopping down at 4:30 on Tuesday to endure 99 minutes of Diaz and Kutcher in Vegas after checking out Tarsem's The Fall (how interesting does that one look?!?!?). Fox is tight on the review embargoes for their films so I doubt I will be able to give an early opinion on Vegas but hopefully WB will be a little lax on Racer opinions and I can spout off early on what I thought.

This week I am also checking out American Teen, which has been getting some buzz and I think is going to be advertising on the site. Let's hope it's good, I hate to bash a film while ads flutter for it all over the site. Speaking of which, notice those Diving Bell and the Butterfly ads? Yeah, definitely give that movie a rent, it's fantastic as Domenic already pointed out.

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