Directed by Tom Vaughan | Written by Dana Fox
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Cameron Diaz, Lake Bell, Rob Corddry
Release Date: May 9, 2008
Jump to: The Vegas Premise · The Courtroom Twist · The Rom-Com Trap · Final Verdict
The Vegas Premise
Only in Vegas can two New York strangers get drunk, married, and $3 million richer in under 24 hours—or so the tourism board wants you to believe.
That’s the hook for What Happens in Vegas, a rom-com starring Ashton Kutcher as Jack and Cameron Diaz as Joy. A hotel mix-up throws them together; tequila does the rest. They wake up hitched.
The Courtroom Twist
Jack then “borrows” Joy’s quarter, hits a jackpot, and suddenly they’re fighting over three million bucks in court.
Enter eccentric judge Dennis Miller, who sentences them to six months of “hard marriage.” Quit early, and you forfeit the cash. Cue a War of the Roses–style sabotage fest as each tries to make the other crack.
The Rom-Com Trap
The film isn’t terrible; it’s just relentlessly predictable.
Kutcher and Diaz spark real chemistry—enough to make you wish the script trusted them with sharper material. Instead, every promising moment is steamrolled by slapstick and rom-com checklist beats: fake crisis, fake dawn, real crisis, real dawn. It’s as if Robert McKee ghost-wrote the third act.
Glimpses of something smarter keep peeking through—raw emotion, witty banter—but the movie races past them to the next pratfall or cliché. Kutcher and Diaz prove they can do more; the filmmakers just won’t let them.
Final Verdict
★★½☆☆
Chemistry can’t save a script on autopilot.
What a shame.
