Just Married
 

A movie like Just Married just proves that stupidity is independent of economic status. Somebody can be rich and stupid, and somebody can be poor and stupid. And they can get together and form a synergistic stupid bond that will pester and annoy everybody around them, especially if they are in a movie. The premise of Just Married is that a rich person (Brittany Murphy, 8 Mile, Riding in Cars With Boys) and a poor person (Ashton Kutcher, Texas Rangers, Dude, Where's My Car?) get together. After a whirlwind romance where the two loved each other, the two wed and find themselves on a honeymoon from hell. They are not the only ones in pain.

Tom (Kutcher) and Sarah (Murphy) are off to Europe, where everything that can possibly go wrong does. Just Married actually starts when the two arrive home. Sam Harper's (Rookie of the Year) script shows how much the two hate each other, then flashes back to happier times to show the progression of their vitriol. The two are clearly in love, much to the consternation of Sarah's family. Just to showcase how uninteresting the movie is, it is more interesting thinking about where people have seen the actors playing Murphy's family than anything else. Hey, her dad is the guy David Rasche (The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Off the Lip) from that show Sledgehammer! And her sister is that girl (Monet Mazur, 40 Days & 40 Nights, The Learning Curve) who so far has done nothing but look hot in movies doing things like xeroxing her butt! Anyways, the two are off the Europe, where things begin to go downhill (in one case, literally).

The humor in Just Married is mostly of the bathroom type. Director Shawn Levy (Big Fat Liar, Just in Time) has all the wrong instincts, taking two actors who have great timing and ruining it. Murphy in particular is like a chameleon, who can easily disappear into all sorts of roles, and her she comes off as shrill and annoying. Kutcher comes off as stupid, and he has a suspiciously easy time doing it in all his films. All the situations feel contrived just to give them an excuse to argue, especially when Peter (Christian Kane, Life or Something Like It, Summer Catch), an ex-boyfriend shows up in Venice to try to win her back. Yes, he is handsome, successful, and rich, but he is also stupid. And for a comedy, there is very little that is actually funny. It's never particularly interesting watching two people argue continuously, especially when it is designed to be funny. The sad thing is that at the beginning, things actually are somewhat amusing. Levy and Harper have them attack each other viciously in the airport, to make it seem like Just Married may turn into a dark comedy. It never does.

Haro Rates It: Pretty Bad.
1 hour, 35 minutes, Rated PG-13 for sexual content, some crude humor, and a brief drug reference.

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