REVIEW: Last Vegas (2013)

Runtime: 107 Mins
Rating: PG-13
What To Expect: Stroke jokes, Mellow humor, Tedious love triangle

The concept of a bunch of bachelors headed to Vegas to get wasted for one man’s last weekend of freedom is indeed a Manly concept.  It’s something that The Hangover (2009) only barely got right in it’s original movie and completely fucked up in it’s horrible sequels.  Here comes a movie that wants to try again, only this time with four old-aged-pensioners instead of four thirty-somethings.  Well, it may want to be that type of movie but it’s more effective as a fucking sleeping agent than bold comedy.  It’s like Diagnosis Murder but without the murdering.  Wait, Diagnosis Murder was both funny and interesting.  Scratch that, not like Diagnosis Murder.

You can’t have a movie with Michael Douglas in it without him leering over and being with a woman seven times younger than he, and that is what this movie is about.  Old (old) man Douglas wants to marry his 32 year old bimbo wife, so his three buddies Morgan Freeman, Kevin Kline and Robert De Niro (WTF is it with this guy, he’s making more movies than Steven Seagal and doing twice as much promotion) take him to Vegas for one ‘Last’ weekend of recklessness.  But… De Niro and Douglas have a grudge, over another, older, woman.  Yep, there we go, abandon ship.  Not even a romantic subplot, but the entire premise.  Even worse, scattered-brained writing with anything of relevance crammed into the final 15 minutes.

The problem with this movie is that it’s terminally mellow.  Even when the old men laugh, they do it quietly.  Everything is inoffensive, too inoffensive.  Is it because the movie is PG-13?  Possibly, but then you gotta ask, why is a movie like this PG-13?  PG-13 is to safeguard 12 year olds and under.  Which 12 year olds want to see this movie, with this cast?  Kids that age don’t even know who Van Damme is let alone Michael Douglas.  None of them want to see it, so with that in mind the movie should’ve thrown caution to the wind and went wild and controversial.  It’s ironically a problem a recent De Niro movie (Grudge Match) had, too soft and too much romance.  Sigh.

It’s not bad, it’s just a picture of anonymous mediocrity.  I wish this shit had stayed in Vegas.

Rating: 6/10