This time, it happened in Vegas

(Non-disclaimer: No spoilers included. You can’t spoil a predictable movie, can you?)

Formula for a romantic comedy: Put a man and a woman together in a foreign land with a lot of partying, a lot of booze and maybe some cranky sidekicks. Let them get high, get drunk and get married. Whoalah! You’ve just skipped the entire troublesome process of flowers, chocolates, fancy restaurants and mutual deception to the happy-ending part of fairy tales. Except that, they don’t really want to get married. So you fast forward further to the divorce part, but throw in some lame excuse that makes getting a divorce twenty thousand times harder than getting married.

And there you have Laws of Attraction (2004), which was a fantastic movie where 2 equally brilliant people battled their wits in court yet admired each other so much that they intentionally take on opposing roles just to compete and win the other. It was a refreshing movie of equals who competed fiercely in their professional lives but slowly grew to understand each other through daily interaction as “husband and wife”.

Vegas though, was nothing like that. The entire marriage was a wacky adventure set to infuriate themselves and entertain their friends. And then somehow admist all the mess, they fell in love with each other and got married again. Peace be on earth.

If you rank Vegas strictly on a scale of humor and the amount of crazy plans they instigated, this movie is a 11 out of 10. But don’t ask me what the movie was about – I don’t know.

There was a bit towards the end about enjoying yourself and not being stuck in a job you don’t like. After all, if the only thing that makes you happy is to travel 30 miles to some barren beach with a lighthouse and be carefree with no worries and no responsibilities, the only way to achieve it is to stop working hard, quit your job and bum around at that beach. It doesn’t hurt if you hit the jackpot at Las Vegas and have a bum for a husband.

But what’s with the hardworking and competitive Asian girl? Why does she have to be Asian? When you have an American boss that values the ability to slice off a champagne bottle using a knife more than anything else, and an American employee (who is capable of slicing off a champagne bottle using a knife) that chooses to quit her job to enjoy life, you have what the Americans have now – living on borrowed money from the Asians.

Time for some Harold & Kumar.