copyright 2009, The Washington Post The characters in 'Couples Retreat' live in a world of marital cliches. The guys bond over beer in the living room while their wives sit in the kitchen with glasses of chardonnay. They're all worried about keeping the spark alive after years of togetherness. So they escape to Eden Resort, an all-inclusive tropical getaway designed to revitalize rundown marriages. As the turquoise water laps in the background, they do couples therapy and couples yoga. The latter allows a beefy instructor to put the wives in compromising positions, thereby challenging the husbands' masculinity. This scene goes for safe, easy, sexist laughs. As does the rest of the movie. Vaughn under duress is one of Hollywood's great shticks, but in this movie he's on autopilot, nearly flatlining as a good father with no hangups and a deferential wife (Malin Akerman). Jon Favreau plays the typical Vaughn part instead, going off on verbal sprees at the slightest provocation by his wife, played by the pert, passable Kristin Davis. Rounding out the troupe are Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell as the uptight couple and Faizon Love and Kali Hawk as the black couple (which is all the movie allows them to be). Watching these affable actors ham it up in French Polynesia seems like the perfect brain vacation, but 'Couples Retreat' coasts on comic fumes, relying solely on colloquialisms, foreign accents, racial stereotypes, lemon sharks, Speedos and inopportune erections to supply the funny. Any one of these things would work in a comedy that was less contrived. The movie requires the four couples to behave unnaturally in order to stoke conflict. People in the real world don't honestly proclaim the death of their marriage and then fully reconcile in the span of 20 seconds, as they do at the climax of this movie. Why couldn't 'Couples Retreat' have been lighthearted and zany throughout, instead of trying to push a message of picket-fence monogamy? It's a scam. It's an excuse for Vaughn and company to kick back in Bora Bora, cobble together subpar entertainment and rake in the dough because we've been conditioned to expect a good time from them. If you want a good comedy about rocky relationships that's set in a tropical resort and co-stars Kristen Bell, rent 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall.' 'Couples Retreat' PG-13, 90 minutes Contains sexual content, language, crude humor and drug references. 