Well, this is timely. So timely, in fact, that one wonders if all the nude celebrity pictures currently leaking online are actually part of some crazy marketing tactic for “Sex Tape”’s UK release this week. I mean, I'm sure Sony would never do such a heinous thing, but the film does need all the help it can get: for starters, it flopped in the US, failing to make back its reported $40 million budget. And though this doesn’t tend to have much of an effect on box office figures, it is, it must be said, absolute rubbish. Not unlike the ongoing hacking scandal, director Jake Kasdan’s comedy sees a couple who shoot a sex tape falling victim to the perils of the iCloud. Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz star as husband and wife Jay and Annie, who, in an attempt to reignite their fizzling sexual passion, decide to film themselves doing the dirty using their brand new iPad. Unfortunately, the video ends up synced to several other devices owned by friends, family, Annie’s new boss and the mailman. In a desperate scramble to save their dignity, Jay and Annie run all over town to get the iPads back before it’s too late and everyone sees their three-hour love session.
This should be comedy gold: here we have a smutty, screwball premise with the potential for all sorts of hilarious hijinks, and a talented cast of comedy stars, among them Rob Corddry, Ellie Kemper and Rob Lowe. Sadly, with only two or three gags worthy of a chuckle, “Sex Tape” is almost completely unfunny, and its mawkish sincerity in regards to Jay and Annie's dwindling sex life clashes awkwardly with its outrageous plot and goofy slapstick, i.e. Segel fighting off a guard dog with an 11-inch, double-ended dildo and a treadmill (a set-piece which is more sad than funny), and Lowe’s ostensibly conservative boss snorting lines of cocaine and rocking out to Slayer (the highlight). It’s a clash it might’ve gotten away with if it had any kind of charm. But like Kasdan’s “Bad Teacher,” it’s cripplingly bland. It’s a faceless studio product, with no vision, no style, no charm, and pretty much nothing going for it outside of its game cast.
It doesn’t even have the courtesy of being sexy. For a supposedly raunchy, R-rated sex farce, its sex scenes are firmly of the PG-13 variety, with its swearwords naughtier than its nudity: every unclothed private part is hidden behind an intricate arrangement of elbows, bed sheets and coffee tables a la “Austin Powers,” but not played for laughs. And both the opening sequence, where we witness Jay and Annie's early bedroom (and park and library) antics, and the closing sequence, where we finally see the contents of the sex tape, are nothing but cartoonish. Segel and Diaz are at least somewhat likable, but what chemistry they have can’t quite overcome the film’s palpable blandness. The film just kind of sits there, and as its plot becomes more and more unbelievable -- the scene at the YouPorn headquarters is all kinds of stupid -- the only logical response is to let out a long, frustrated sigh. And I haven’t even mentioned the film’s gravest error: Rob Lowe’s in a film called “Sex Tape” and the film doesn’t even make a joke about it. How do you mess that up?
Rating: 3/10
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