People getting drunk and ending up getting married in Las Vegas is, by now, a very tired TV and movie cliché.
Ross and Rachel did it in 'Friends' while Homer Simpson got drunk and married a prostitute in an episode of 'The Simpsons'.
The latest two characters to fall victim of the Las Vegas curse are Jack (Ashton Kutcher) and Joy (Cameron Diaz) who end up married after, you guessed it, a drunken night in Vegas.
Many of us will never have been to Las Vegas but the advice from the outset seems to be 'watch what you drink. You might wake up in the morning married to some random person'.
Vegas is known for its many wedding chapels where couples can walk in off the street and get married. If you so desire you can get married by a singing Elvis, I'm told.
I also believe that many of the Vegas casinos' serve free drink, as long as you gamble, so it seems obvious now that, as Lloyd Grossman would say, 'the clues are there' - too much free gargle and you know what's going to happen.
All this serves to introduce 'What Happens in Vegas', the latest romantic comedy starring rom-com stalwarts Kutcher and Diaz.
In 'What happens in Vegas' Ashton Kutcher's character, Jack (lazy and recently unemployed) and his best mate head off to Las Vegas to 'party'. Also on their way to Vegas is Joy, a high flying Wall Street trader, and her friend.
The four meet when the hotel mixes up their booking checking all four into the one hotel room, much to their surprise, embarrassment, delight, annoyance (delete as appropriate).
After this embarrassing / annoying mix-up the two sets of friends decide to go on the 'lash' and the following morning Jack and Joy are reminded they got married - to each other - the previous evening.
Anyway, the next day things get more complicated when Jack, using Joy's money, wins a fortune on one of the slot machines.
But what do they do with the money, and the marriage? A judge decides that instead of an annulment he wants them to give marriage a try, and won't let either of them have the money for at least six months.
Much hilarity will follow as upmarket and organised Joy has to get used to messy, disorganised Jack if they are too keep the money. The sacrament of marriage is on shaky ground here, I fear.
Of course, as this is a romantic comedy, the pair will initially annoy the crap out of each other but hate will soon turn to love for that, my friends, is what happens in the movies.
Don't expect any new ideas to come from 'What Happens in Vegas'. What you do get in this movie is Ashton Kutcher overacting his socks off and, along with Diaz, the pair seem to laugh and giggle their way through the duration of this slight sounding feature.
To me the plot is kind of reminiscent of one of Kutcher's previous movies 'Just Married' in which two recently married young people (although granted in that film they knew each other before the service) learn to live with each other in an 'opposite's attract' kind of way.
'What Happens in Vegas' sounds like a bright, colourful and mildly entertaining little film. It's just that everything here has been done before - and probably done better.
'What Happens in Vegas' is currently on general release.
