Couples Retreat

Rating: 6.0/10

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Overall value for time and money: 6.5/10

Comedy: 3/5

Romance: 2.5/5

Story: 2/5

Cast: 2.5/5

A movie on 4 middle-aged couples who decided to go to a tropical-island resort for a vacation, after much persuasion from one particular couple who were on the verge of divorce. 4 couples, all trying to either save, rekindle or find some time away from their mandane lives, settle on "paradise" island just to find out that there's a catch... a compulsory "couple therapy session".

It's quite like your temptation island, with one side of the island for couples, where couples will spend more time together and address the issues of their marriage... while on the the other side, for singles... where they basically... just party and have sex, yup, crudely put.

What I didn't like about the movie was that that the story was weak, everything was too conveniently pieced up at the end. The closure was too abrupt and didn't make much sense... Also, though the casting was good, great performances by each and everyone of them, it acted like a double edged sword because there was little character development. There were too many couples to focused on and while the director did give a fair share of screen time for each of them, it still lacked the "understanding the characters" element, we simply don't feel that much for them.

But, that's about all the complains I have for this movie. It was surprisingly better than I had expected, in terms of comedy and romance. It was pretty refreshing, ironically, to see 4 of the possible scenarios of how relationships would turn out in future. There's the loving kind, there's the lusting kind, there's the trying to make things work kind, and the still can't move on without you kind; 4 contrasting and rather eye-opening situations.

It was pretty romantic towards the end, but the abrupt closure still dominated the film, it was like watching the movie in fast forward at the very end. Still, a decent couple movie to catch, a movie to allow yourself to go, relax, laugh about it, then sit back, spend 5 minutes thinking about it... and then getting on with your life.