Mommy and Daddy Make a Porno

It’s a beautiful thing when lightning strikes and magic happens.

Like, it’s such kismet that, of course, one – especially, say, a studio head in such an uninspired-as-of-late place as modern-day Hollywood – would be inclined to go chase that magic...to make it happen again.

Which is what probably led to Sex Tape.

A rather-humorless reunion for the winning Bad Teacher team of director Jake Kasdan and Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel, you rightly would and should think that the laughs would just keep a-comin’ – ;) – with this one.

But you’d be wrong.

Diaz and Segel play Annie and Jay, a married-with-two-kids couple well settled into their suburban life. Lest you think it, mommy-blogger tells us as the movie opens, the two didn’t used to be as domesticated as they are when we first meet them. On the contrary, college sweethearts Annie and Jay made just about every surfaced they ever encountered pay the sexual piper back in the day. And don’t you know that, actually, they were so attuned and sexual with each other, Jay’s penis developed a sort of Annie Alert, standing at attention even before she walked into a room.

So what happened? Life did. PTA meets and schedules and work. Y’ know...routine.

Sex Tape is supposed to be a raunchy comedy about a bored (?) couple trying to spark things up a bit (that question mark’s there ’cause they just seem overwhelmed). It’s supposed to be about the high jinks that ensue after said homemade production inadvertently goes “up to the Cloud” and is, thus, downloadable into every iPad the couple has given away to their friends (Rob Corddry and Bridesmaids’ Ellie Kemper) and family, her potential new boss (Rob Lowe, in a more-than-meets-the-eye turn that quickly wears out its welcome), and even their mailman.

Don’t worry, the explanation for that one makes them less loathsome than that. I mean, who gives away iPads as gifts so freely, other than like, Tim Cook?

But I digress.

One of the problems, if not the problem with Sex Tape is that it sets itself up for a Hangover-style type of night after, you know. Annie and Jay do the deed – the lot of The Joy of Sex (yes, even that in her case...and that in his). However, the story drags, and instead of making many a desperate stop over the course of one night on their hope-no-one’s-seen-this-yet way to saving face, the movie simply satisfies itself with a couple of long, mostly lame layovers and a mess of a climax that tries too hard.

All the movie wants to do is get the point across that it’s A-OK for a couple of people as sexy as Diaz and as a funny and gentle as Segel are to hit a rut, provided they remember why they’re together in the first place. Why they love each other.

Whereas we just wanna see ’em gettin’ down and nasty here and there so we can have a laugh every once in a while.

I gotta believe there was a cleverer, funner ways to bait-and-switch on the movie’s title.

My Rating *1/2

Photo: Sony Pictures.