Sex Tape Review
There are some movies where all the ideas look great
on paper. The sad thing is that something may be all sorts of awesome on paper,
but the execution of the idea may not be translating to the screen properly.
You can hire an Academy Award winning director and you can bring in every
A-List actor you can find, but still the execution of an idea is everything.
The success or failure of a movie depends on a core group of artists and the
decisions they make.
I can tell that “Sex Tape” begins in a sincere
place. It may revolve around a raunchy subject, but it tries to tell a bigger
picture. It never once tries to juggle two completely different stories, rather
the idea of a married couple making a sex tape parallels how problematic and
difficult a particular marriage has got over the years and what a couple must
do to rekindle their romance. The film tries to tackle this subject in a smart
way, and I think if the film tried went in this direction the whole way, this
would have been a raunchy, sexy comedy. I think Jason Siegel and Cameron Diaz
are both good in this, even better than they were in 2011’s “Bad Teacher,” and
they quickly draw into this relationship.
Siegel and Diaz play Jay and Annie, college
sweethearts who began their relationships between the sheets and they decide to
marry after Annie is pregnant. It does not matter, they really care for each
other and I think Siegel and Diaz do a good job of creating a quick yet
passionate relationship. Once they have not one, but two kids, they realize
that continuing a rigorous, fresh sex life is tough with two little ones in the
family. I do not have two kids of my own so I don’t know from experience, but
the critics I have read on this movie agree that both Siegel and Diaz paint an
accurate portrait of sexual frustration after starting a family. It may seem
silly, but in some cases, it is a real thing, and this movie highlights that
very well.
Like I said both Siegel and Diaz are excellent
throughout and their supporting cast of Rob Corddry, Ellie Kemper and Rob Lowe
are all equally excellent. I love that you think you know where Rob Lowe’s
character is going to go, and you think he’ll be a typical movie cliché. But
you’ll be surprised to learn that his the last scene his character has is one
of the most outrageously perfect scenes in the film. “Sex Tape” has all the
right ingredients for a good, old-fashioned, raunchy comedy. But it fumbles in
two important areas, it is not sexy and it is not funny.
This movie is being advertised as a comedy and it’s
called “Sex Tape,” it is about a married couple that makes a sex tape that
accidently gets leaked to the internet and they race to delete all copies of
the tape. This is a movie that stars Jason Siegel and Cameron Diaz, so why am I
not raving about it after all this explanation? Well, for starters, for an
R-rated sex-comedy, it features PG-rated sex jokes. There is absolutely nothing
funny about the sexual humor in the movie, this is the type of material a 6th
grader would conjure and that is borderline frightening. The other material in
the movie is not funny either. Not any of the jokes, not the big scene at the
end where Jay tries to stop the sex tape from showing at a family event, not
Jay’s fight with a dog, none of it lands. As far as humor is concerned, I
barely cracked a smile once, for a comedy, that is not a good thing.
Also, the film is not sexy at all. And for a film
that revolves around a sex tape (a three-hour sex tape, mind you) that is
nearly unforgivable. Even as she has grown older, Cameron Diaz still looks
great, and she is a perfect candidate for a movie like this, she is bold and
bright and fearless in a way most actresses her age are not. It seems the crew
behind this movie disagreed with me, because none of that talent is used. This
is a PG-13 movie that somehow got pushed into R-rated territory and that is
sad.
I am bit disappointed because I feel this could have
been one of the smaller highlights of the summer. Now, I am just bummed that
this didn’t work as a whole. It has some interesting insight into
relationships, sexual frustrations, marriage and the need to protect what
matters to you, and that could have been an intriguing parallel to a sex
comedy. However, “Sex Tape” fumbles the two biggest needs to make this work,
and that is a bitter pill to swallow.
FINAL GRADE: C-
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