Sex Tape Review

Rated R (Strong Sexual Content, Nudity, Language and Some Drug Use)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 34 Minutes

Cast-

Cameron Diaz-Annie Hargrove

Jason Segel-Jay Hargrove

Ellie Kemper-Tess

Rob Corddry-Robby

Rob Lowe-Hank Rosenbaum

Nat Faxon-Max

Nancy Lenehan-Linda

Timothy Brennen-Walt

Sebastian Hedges Thomas-Clive Hargrove

Giselle Eisenberg-Nell Hargrove

Harrison Holzer-Howard

Kumail Nanjiani-Punit

Artemis Asteriadis-Kia

Randall Park-Edward

Jack Black-Owner of YouPorn

Directed by Jake Kasdan

Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel try their best but "Sex Tape" ends up being a limp affair.

Note: Screened on Wednesday, July 16, 2014 at AMC Loews Kips Bay 15.

Homegrown Video proudly proclaims on their homepage that it is the 'original amateur porn site' and it is indeed true as they were the first company to commercially release and distribute homemade, amateur pornography to customers who were hungry for such content. In fact, they've been doing it for thirty-two years now. I'm amazed they're actually still in business given the rise of free pornographic video sharing websites like YouPorn and PornHub, which boast tens of thousands of amateur porn videos, all literally at the fingertips of Internet users. Hell, there's over forty-six thousand videos currently uploaded in the 'amateur' category on YouPorn, and that's only for one website! Homemade sex tapes aren't quite the taboo they once were ten years ago (you can thank Hollywood for that), with many couples nowadays making them for their own personal—and sometimes non-personal—use. Sure, it's obviously embarrassing when something that was meant to be viewed in private gets out to the public but other than that, who cares? Jay and Annie cares, that's who! Played by Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz, Jay and Annie are a long-married couple who attempt to spice up their love life by making a sex tape, which—of course—accidentally gets out in Jake Kasdan's latest film, appropriately titled "Sex Tape." The premise seems to promise plenty of raunchy and ribald humor but sadly, that's not the case. Despite Diaz and Segel's best efforts, "Sex Tape" is just another bland and unfunny R-rated comedy.

College sweethearts Annie (Cameron Diaz) and Jay Hargrove (Jason Segel) used to have sex all the time but their passion for physical intimacy has noticeably cooled after ten years of marriage and having two kids. Wanting to celebrate a potentially lucrative business deal with morally-minded corporation Piper Brothers, who are looking to acquire her popular mommy blog Who's Yo Momma, Annie decides to send the kids away to her mother's (Nancy Lenehan) and surprise her husband with a night of wild lovemaking. Arriving home and seeing his wife roller skating in nothing but a see-through shirt and panties immediately gets Jay excited. The couple races to the bedroom and gets down to business but discover that they've unfortunately forgotten how to be physically intimate with each other. After downing a few tequila shots, Annie suggests that they should spice things up by recording a sex tape on their iPad. Jay readily agrees and together they shoot a three-hour marathon demonstrating every position featured in Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex. Despite intending to delete the file the very next day, Jay unwittingly leaks the video when his iPad syncs to all the other iPads he had given away as presents. Realizing his error when he receives a series of mysterious texts, Jay, along with his wife and their married friends Tess (Ellie Kemper) and Robby (Rob Corddry), frantically set out to retrieve the iPads before friends, family, and potential employers like Piper Brothers CEO Hank Rosenbaum (Rob Lowe) get a chance to view the Hargrove's extended lovemaking session.

"Nobody understands the cloud! It's a f*cking mystery!"

Like Seth MacFarlane's "A Million Ways to Die in the West," Jake Kasdan's "Sex Tape" is another one of those aggressively mediocre comedies that offer a few scattered laughs here and there but little else. Part of the problem lies with the premise, which seems more suited to a half-hour sitcom special. It's just too thin and one-note to sustain a feature-length film, even if it's only an hour and thirty-four minutes long. Sure, it makes "Sex Tape" an easy sell for Columbia Pictures/Sony but it feels like someone came up with the premise and then didn't bother to figure out all the particulars. The language and 'peek-a-boo' nudity is the only reason the film even has an R-rating as much of the comedy is too tame to make much of an impact, with Kasdan often settling for cartoonish slapstick to get laughs. In fact, it's surprising how small-scale the picture is compared to the similarly-themed "Neighbors," which also featured a couple trying to stave off a stagnant marriage (the two comedies coincidentally share a common link with Nicholas Stoller, who directed "Neighbors" and polished the script for "Sex Tape" with Segel and Kate Angelo).

It takes almost half the film for the titular sex tape to get made and then leaked but the promise of outrageousness from that event unfortunately never materializes. The second act is just one long protracted sequence set in Hank Rosenbaum's spacious mansion where Jay frantically roams around trying to find Hank's iPad while being chased by his angry German shepherd. You can feel Kasdan struggling to mine the high-concept premise for three acts' worth of story. The few laughs you'll get are largely extraneous, such as Hank's bizarre paintings of himself in various Disney classics or his huge tattoo of rapper Eazy-E on his backside. It's frankly pathetic when the amount of laughs your comedy offers can be counted on one hand. But what of the sex tape itself? The big climactic release the picture builds to couldn't have fallen more flat as half of the tape has Jay inexplicably singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame in a loincloth. Making matters worse, the editing in the film is lazy and the whole affair plays like an extended ad for Apple products. Although much has been made about how "Sex Tape" gets technology wrong given that the likelihood of a naughty video file leaking onto 'the cloud' is low but in the context of the film, it makes sense...mostly. That's pretty much all the praise I can give honestly. 

The supporting cast is amusing but the script is just too sub-par to be funny.

Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel are appealing in their roles and they try their best despite the sub-par script. However, the two never click as well as they should, with Diaz struggling at times to keep up with Segel's rapid-fire improv. Don't get me wrong, they work well together (see the much superior "Bad Teacher," also directed by Kasdan, as an example) but for a film about rediscovering the passion in your marriage, Diaz and Segel can come off as rather stiff. The supporting cast that Kasdan has gathered is a bit more entertaining to watch, with Rob Lowe being the standout as he gleefully riffs on his troubled past by revealing that underneath his character's good-guy image is a Slayer-loving cocaine fiend. Ellie Kemper and Rob Corddry make for an amusing pair as well while an uncredited Jack Black has a scene-stealing cameo.

Released on July 18, 2014, "Sex Tape" has received abysmal reviews with a paltry 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics found Kasdan's latest to be a 'flaccid' affair as it 'neither [has] the conviction to embrace its smutty premise nor enough laughs to function as a worthwhile rom-com.' The audience at the advance screening ate the film up but their enthusiastic response didn't translate to box office success as it flopped with an anemic opening weekend debut of $15 million. That's lower than this summer's other high-profile comedy flop "A Million Ways to Die in the West." "Sex Tape" could've been the next great sex comedy but the end result is bland and forgettable. You're better off just watching "1 Night in Paris." At least you see the actual sex happen in that video!

Final Rating: 2 out of 5

"Who has sex for three hours?! That's the length of the movie Lincoln. You did the full Lincoln!"