"Sex Tape" isn't insultingly dumb. It isn't without a few laughs. It has two lead actors who are nice to watch. The problem is that it is completely unneeded and useless. It feels amateurish and rushed. It contains no plot points, scenes, or laughs that you will remember by the time you walk out of the auditorium. This film does not care about the audience or entertaining them. The whole thing feels like a first draft that was filmed in one take by competent actors. They don't do a bad job. They just don't do anything well. They don't care if it is well done or even actually funny. They need to plow through it and move on to the next scene. There is no passion or effort on the screen. Just mediocrity.
The steam in Annie (Cameron Diaz) and Jay's (Jason Segel) relationship is gone. It isn't that the two don't find each other attracted. It is that the real world has gotten in the way of their love-life. Between their kids, their friends, and their jobs there just isn't enough time for the bedroom. In hopes of rekindling the spark, the two decide to film a "sex tape" on their tablet under the pretense that Jay will delete afterwards. Weeks pass and Jay receives a text from someone saying how much they enjoyed watching the show. It turns out when Jay synced music from his tablet to his friends, he accidentally synced all the media. This includes the "sex tape" that he had forgotten to delete. This sends Annie and Jay on an adventure to recover all the tablets and delete the tape before it becomes an Internet sensation that is certain to end Annie's career as a blogger and would make Jay really uncomfortable.
"Sex Tape" is a completely unnecessary film. It offers nothing that the audience will please an audience in any meaningful way. There are a handful of laughs. Diaz and Segel are charming and work well together. The problem is that it never commits to anything. It is a raunchy film that doesn't even feel raunchy. It is a comedy where the jokes seem forced and not polished. There were large stretches of this film where the audience simply didn't laugh. It wasn't that there weren't comedic moments occurring. The comedy simply didn't work.
The conflict in this feels so forced and uninteresting. "Oh no! Someone has the tape!" "Oh no! Many people have the tape!" "Oh no! This will hurt my job!" "Oh no! We need to go to your boss's house to get the video!" "Oh no! There is a guard dog!" "Oh no! That bratty kid has our tape!" There is nothing here that does anything besides simply moving the plot along in the hopes that it might generate a funny moment. It is a lazy film. Director Jake Kasdan has made some great films. "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story" is one of the best comedies in the last decade. He directed many episodes of "Freaks and Geeks" which is one of the best TV shows ever made. "Orange County" is one of the better coming-of-age films and it is a matter of time until it reaches cult status. "Sex Tape" is just boring, dull, and lazy.
There is an almost insultingly large amount of product placement in this film. Apple products must have have funded the production to a large degree. While the film is essentially admitting the iPad is a "mobile porn studio", it also champions the device left and right. It shows how easy it is to sync data. It stresses how durable the iPad is even when thrown out of a window. It is so easy even your children, mother, and everyone you know can use it. The product placement doesn't just stop at Apple. In one scenea character spouts off a huge list of Internet porn sites. This list of sites goes on for almost a minute. This isn't funny. The audience is not amused that your film knows about real-world porn sites. The whole thing seems like an extremely awkward commercial. I would like to watch the meeting the filmmakers had with these companies as they try to flesh out (pun so very much intended) how much money they would receive for each site mentioned. "We are really trying to promote 'Giant Tentacle Fury'. Can we fit that in there somewhere?" "Can we include just one more? The hits on 'Sad Mom's' have been dwindling and we need to push that brand."
The one redeeming quality of "Sex Tape" is that the relationship between Segel and Diaz works. These two actors click well and we care about them. This is not a couple that hates each other and should divorce like Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd in "This is 40". This is just a couple who have had the real-world push them away from the bedroom. They work well together and are great to their kids. With the exception of a moment in the last act, there is no real conflict between these two. They love each other and simply want to do what they can to stop this video from getting out. This is refreshing when you see so many couples in films who are always on the brink of divorcing. There is no doubt in the audience's mind that Segel and Diaz should be together and are good for each other.
"Sex Tape" should be so much better than it is. It has a good cast, a good director, and a decent plotline. The problem is that nobody seems to care that they are there. Everyone is sleepwalking through their parts. The only laughs seem like improvised one-takes that were no doubt better than what was on the script. In a summer that seems to be empty of a good comedy, this might be the lowest point.
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