Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy are young, beautiful and not very good actors. (Well, at least in what I’ve seen them in.) With that in mind, my hopes for Just Married weren’t very high. After a promising beginning, the movie lived up to my low expectations.
Tom (Kutcher) and Sarah (Murphy) have about as much in common as you’d expect a Hollywood couple to have. Tom is a poor, late night radio traffic reporter. Sarah is the daughter of a rich sports team owner. Of course, a chance meeting on a beach is all they need to set a romance in motion and, despite the protestations of Sarah’s parents, they get married shortly thereafter. Just Married focuses on the couple’s honeymoon in Europe and the supposedly funny events that take place as they visit France and Italy.
What I kept thinking throughout the entire movie is that these two people are supposed to have lived together for nine months and still they don’t really know much about each other. What did they talk about during those nine months? They seem like they’re on their first date rather than their honeymoon. When Tom wants to watch baseball at a bar in Venice rather than visit a church with Sarah, I wondered, “Why would she marry this guy in the first place?” That’s the kiss of death for a romantic comedy even one as inept as Just Married. If I don’t think they belong together, why would I care if the former boyfriend follows them to Italy?
The movie delivers a nice message about working through problems in a relationship rather than giving up, but most viewers will probably give up on this laugh-less movie before hearing it. And rightfully so.
1.5 out of 5.0 stars
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