“Sex Tape” on IMDB Comedy, 94 Minutes, 2014
Holy shit, something’s missing! Something important and/or valuable and/or embarrassing! Something owned by nice people whom we would like see find it! Nice people with wacky, madcap friends that have good intentions, but ultimately only seem to hinder their search! A search that regularly encounters ridiculous, almost surreal obstacles!
In this case the thing is a sex tape; sort of. It’s not a tape – it’s a digital file recorded on an iPad. An iPad owned by a guy that buys a lot of iPads, but apparently can’t afford a real video camera. He gives the extra iPads away to people without wiping them or clearing his iCloud credentials, so – and I’ll forgive you if you’ve lost interest – when he uses his current one to make a sex video it’s automatically synchronized to all the others.
The movie spends surprising amounts of time and energy explaining this. If you’re anything like me you may very well respond to this horribly incompetent, technologically tortured mass of stupidity with, “Serves the dumbass right!” Those less technically inclined will just be confused. However you respond to the explanation, the movie digs a deep hole for its heroes.
It’s sad because we start off with a nice, sentimental (if raunchy) series of flashbacks to how our lovers met. They were truly, madly in love and couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Now – after careers, a mortgage and kids – they’re still madly in love, but the physical heat has cooled. To spice things up, they make a sex video. Then they lose it in such a moronic way that they squander every bit of audience goodwill earned.
The cast is difficult to fault. Jason Segel [IMDB] plays Jason Segel better than anybody else and Cameron Diaz [IMDB] is funnier than most people give her credit for. They both bring a few great laughs. The goofball friends are played by Rob Corddry [IMDB] and the woefully under-used Ellie Kemper [IMDB]. They’re just not given a whole heck of a lot to really sink their teeth into.
There are some good times here, but precious little that you’ve not seen many times before. If you really want to see a comedy romp about retrieving a sex video, check out “Frankie Go Boom” [my review] instead. It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot more enjoyable.
