The What Happens in Vegas Trailer is Brutally Bad

When it comes to movie trailers, creators must be original and imaginative about the films they are working to summarize. Thriller trailers must reveal just enough plot and action to get audiences interested; dramas must expose several beautiful scenes which trip the senses; and romantic comedies need to simply spread a little humor over the top of a traditional, light-hearted love story. With a little luck, you’ve got an audience. Well, I recently watched the trailer for the upcoming romantic comedy What Happens In Vegas starring Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz and I found some elements a bit curious. Simply put, the trailer has some serious logistical issues.

The story revolves around two people who are bit down on their luck. Joy (Cameron Diaz) has been dumped and Jack (none other than Ashton Kutcher) has been fired from his job by his own father. When you’re down on your luck, feeling like crap, and you want to forget all your troubles, where do you go? VEGAS!! To lay it out nice and simple for you, the couple meets, drinks too much, and they wake up, well, married. So far I have no qualms with the story; it’s very straightforward and, for someone like me, it’s amusing. It was after this moment, however, that I began to feel a bit perplexed.

Logically, Joy wakes up in a sudden panic realizing what she has done. The couple argues about the ensuing annulment. Joy gives Jack a quarter to call her with to make sure the annulment happens. Jack puts the quarter in the slot machine, and BANG, he hits the three-million dollar jackpot. Here is tricky, unrealistic part #1: Joy and Jack begin to fight over the three-million dollar check. Joy insists it’s hers because it was her quarter, and Jack maintains that he put the quarter in the machine, so clearly it’s his money. Now, we are talking about three million dollars here. That’s a lot of money! It’s like, over a million more that each person had the day before, right?! So, why can’t they just split it?? That’s $1.5 million each! I seriously think that had these two known what was in store for them, they would have just split the money, gotten the annulment and tabled the argument. But noooo.

Flash to the next trailer scene. The two are in court, no doubt trying to settle the money and/or marriage issues. Here is tricky, unrealistic part #2: after what I can imagine was Joy and Jack explaining their sides of the story, the judge (Dennis Miller), sentences them to “six months hard marriage.” What does that even mean? Can you really force people to be married? Divorce sucks and marriage is a serious commitment, one which those who make the leap should take seriously, but come on! Hard marriage? What is that?

So the movie wouldn’t naturally maintain forward momentum if logic were to enter the picture here, so we see the couple monotonously living together. They commit a series of pranks against one and other in an effort to get the other to “end the marriage.” (They were sentenced to six months hard marriage, right? Does this mean the six months are up and they legally can then end the marriage? Can they go against their sentencing in the movies?) Why do they have to be together all the time? If it’s only six months, why can’t they be separated for the majority of the time? Hey, distance makes the heart grow fonder, right?

Well, I realize that trailers only unveil two and half minutes of a 90-minute movie, but I have to say, a whole heck of a lot of this film must revolve around this court ordered “six months of hard marriage.” I just don’t get it. I’d flee the country if that was my fate. Seriously! I’d disappear. What would you do? This doesn't seem to make much sense.

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