Sex Tape (2014)
Directed by Jake Kasdan
When Jay and Annie first got together, their romantic connection was intense – but ten years and two kids later, the flame of their love needs a spark. To kick things up a notch, they decide – why not? – to make a video of themselves trying out every position in The Joy of Sex in one marathon three-hour session. It seems like a great idea – until they discover that their most private video is no longer private. With their reputations on the line, they know they’re just one click away from being laid bare to the world... but as their race to reclaim their video leads to a night they'll never forget, they'll find that their video will expose even more than they bargained for.
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Surprisingly, chuckles do come from choice bits of parental nerdiness; one stupefied neighbor, hearing of their three-hour sex bout, compares it to the movie Lincoln.
They decide (and yes, this is, for some reason, a fairly significant plot point) to use the "Joy of Sex" as an inspiration, going through every single sexual position in the four-decade-old sex manual, which gives their sex tape a real awards season-scope (one characters jokes that, at 3 hours, it's longer than "Lincoln.").
Here's one anyway: It's about Annie (Cameron Diaz) and Jay (Segel), the people who made said home movie—a three-hour epic that their pal Robby (Rob Corddry) says is as long as "Lincoln"—and how unintentionally posting it to the cloud nearly becomes social and professional suicide.
As best friend Robby (Rob Corddry) points out, that's the length of the movie "Lincoln".
"Sex Tape" sets itself up as a zany, "up-all-night" comedy-adventure in the tradition of 1987's endlessly entertaining "Adventures in Babysitting" and 2010's smartly funny, romantically resonant " Date Night ," but then does surprisingly little with its premise.
If the narrative had been positioned in a slightly different way, it could have resembled something like "After Hours" or maybe "Adventures in Babysitting" – a seemingly impossible scenario, stretched out across an endless night, with increasing levels of danger or unpredictability.
It's a valiant effort, and there is something, though very little, of Cary Grant's scampering in "Bringing Up Baby" to Segel's mishaps around the CEO's mansion.
“Sex Tape” was directed by Jake Kasdan (son of “Big Chill” and “Body Heat” director Lawrence Kasdan) and its screenplay is credited to Segel, Kate Angelo and Nicholas Stoller, all purportedly adult native speakers of English.
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“Sex Tape” is both an ad for Apple products and a take-off on the enjoyable 2000 film “Road Trip” in which a group of people try to fetch a VHS tape that has accidentally been swapped for another.
There is a savvier picture to be whittled from the spare parts of "Sex Tape," and its name is " Road Trip ," the far superior 2000 college romp starring Breckin Meyer, Seann William Scott and Amy Smart.
This is not a new problem (the film at times feels like "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" meets "Date Night"), and you don't go into "Sex Tape" expecting wisdom about relationships.
This is, in effect, an R-rated movie with a coy PG-13 sensibility, which can be chalked up in part to the fairly inexplicit sex scenes — a few moments of self-consciously casual rear nudity aside, there’s nothing here to shock those who saw the much edgier “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” or Segel’s full-frontal displays in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”
Banks and Seth Rogen traveled a similar route as a nice couple who go down and dirty in Kevin Smith’s bumpily agreeable 2008 comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
A misnomer, and maybe also a crime against humanity, Sex Tape follows in the noble tradition of Zack and Miri Make a Porno - everyday people who decide to document themselves engaged in sex.
Six years ago Kevin Smith's "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" was funnier, sharper, and more interesting in its central relationship.
It starred Jennifer Lopez and isn’t “Out of Sight.”
Segel and Diaz have reunited here with director Jake Kasdan, who all worked together on Bad Teacher, which was itself a Bad Santa ripoff set in middle school.
Segel, Diaz, and director Jake Kasdan teamed up a few years ago on Bad Teacher, a Bad Santa derivative with an appealing raunchiness, and Segel and his frequent writing/directing partner, Nicholas Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Neighbors ), co-wrote the script with Kate Angelo.
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And the movie ends with a closing series of gags that’s clearly meant to evoke “The Hangover,” but not even close.
It follows a trail blazed by The Hangover very closely, forcing Segel and Diaz into increasingly dangerous, bizarre situations to prevent everyone they know from watching them have sex.
But its final sequence, so obviously cribbed from “The Hangover,” is the final nail in its coffin, the pic’s way of finally waving the white flag 89 minutes too late.
By the time we actually see the "edited for an R-rating" sex tape, presented in a similar manner as the credits scene of "The Hangover," it's kind of a letdown.
So begins a late-night quest to recover all those loose tablets; a perilous journey into the heart of… okay, I will accept there is a chance this is not precisely the modern-day equivalent of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, and just a terribly-made, tone-deaf comedy with more depressing sex montages than Nymphomaniac.