Want to see a “Sex Tape” this weekend? You might be better off Googling Kim Kardashian, because critics can’t get behind the R-rated Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz comedy about a couple who still haven’t learned from her mistakes.
With just a 19 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, at the moment, the Sony release has been panned in the majority of reviews, including TheWrap‘s Inkoo Kang.
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“It can get it up, but unfortunately it can’t keep it up,” she concluded in her review, which echoes others reporting laughs are there — they’re just not plentiful.
And that may actually be the least of the movie’s problems.
Here are 11 brutal takedowns that should make audiences think twice before paying for “Sex.”
Deadspin critic Tim Grierson:
“‘Sex Tape’ is such a dumb movie that it’s hard to know where to start … The real problem is that ‘Sex Tape’ doesn’t make sense in any regard. It’s yet another “shocking” R-rated comedy that’s so toothless and witless that the nudity and swearing are actively irritating, reminding you of the idiocy surrounding the dirty parts.”
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Miami Herald critic Connie Ogle:
“The cinematic equivalent of herpes, ‘Sex Tape’ is an uncomfortable embarrassment to raunchy comedies everywhere. Fortunately, no medication is required after being exposed to it: The effects are not permanent, only painful.”
RogerEbert.com critic Christy Lemire:
“It’s a high-concept premise that ends up being preposterous and riddled with plot holes, and the way these fools fling themselves into an all-night, madcap adventure to right their wrong is painfully strained and unfunny. Also, the whole notion of making a sex tape and then being ashamed of it seems sort of quaint at this point–as if everyone involved missed the zeitgeist for maximum relevance and edginess about five years ago.”
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Arizona Republic critic Barbara VanDenburgh:
“For a movie filled with amateur porn, sex toys, cocaine and Cameron Diaz‘s butt, ‘Sex Tape’ is awfully tame. You’re in greater danger of taking a nap than needing a safe word … These are shallow characters with distressingly fake jobs, clearly retrofitted to make the unnecessarily convoluted plot work — which still doesn’t. Anybody with a passing familiarity with modern technology (or a modicum of common sense) can figure out the technological solution it takes Jay nearly the entire movie to realize, and only after it’s pointed out to him, rendering their painfully awkward adventure not just dumb, but wholly unnecessary.”
Entertainment Weekly critic Leah Greenblatt:
“Director Jake Kasdan, who also helmed ‘Bad Teacher,’ doesn’t quite seem to know what tone he’s going for, and the last half of the movie veers wildly between crude hard-R comedy and warm-hearted teachable moments. Blessedly, it’s also short; roughly half the running time of the three hours Annie and Jay clock in their much-vaunted sexcapades. So everybody gets their happy ending.”
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Detroit News critic Tom Long:
“‘Sex Tape’ is a long sitcom episode. Seriously, the premise could easily fit into the new FX show “Married.” Only there it would likely get some oddball spin and foster some interesting observations on the waning fires of love. In movie form, it’s just the basis for lots of pratfalls, some great gaps in logic and one of the least sexy films about sex ever made … It’s what they used to call “high concept” which usually meant witless but easy to understand.”
Philadelphia Inquirer critic Steven Rea:
“A misnomer, and maybe also a crime against humanity, ‘Sex Tape’ follows in the noble tradition of ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno’ — everyday people who decide to document themselves engaged in sex. In the 2008 bomb-com, Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks played platonic friends hard up for cash who try going hard-core. In the totally-different-and-the-screenwriters-have-nothing-to-worry-about-vis-a-vis-a-lawsuit 2014 exploration of these burning issues of our time, Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz are Jay and Annie, a couple whose sex life used to be everything.”
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Reelviews critic James Berardinelli:
“The contrivance necessary to allow the tape to be distributed is insulting to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of how technology works. It feels artificial. The filmmakers, apparently aware of this, attempt to shoehorn in an explanation but it only calls attention to how absurd the situation is. The events of ‘Sex Tape’ not only make leading man Jay (Jason Segel) come across as an unsympathetic moron but they insult the intelligence of even moderately technologically savvy viewers.”
Film School Rejects critic William Goss:
“The Upside: The paintings belonging to Rob Lowe’s character are funnier than most of the film’s other gags. The Downside: The real-life sex tape belonging to Rob Lowe is funnier than most of the film’s other gags.”
Wall Street Journal critic Joe Morgenstern:
“Instead of soft core, ‘Sex Tape’ offers no core. No narrative core, just a not-bad notion executed execrably; no core of conviction, just two stars trudging joylessly through swamps of mediocrity.”
Movies.com critic Dave White:
“In spite of its title it’s the least sexy sex comedy in years, a desperate, extended sitcom about people who are ashamed that they got kinky for a night, people who then run around frantically trying to erase the lingering memory, all the while not understanding how the internet works. They also don’t know much about how life works. They have names, I guess, but not identities, so I’ll call them The Wife and The Husband.”