Couples Retreat

"Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau are now these great big pork monuments to just how cheesy and bad everything can go" - Mark Kermode, BBC Radio 5 Live

Apostrophe-defying twaddle with Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau. Immensely contrived plot developments introduce characters into going to a holiday island to save money. The film also can't make its mind up as to whether it wants to be rude and gross-out adult humour, or shoot for a really wide audience.

Mark Kermode memorably described the experience of watching the film as being exactly like that of walking into a plate-glass door, something he personally did just before interviewing Alastair Campbell on the same day as seeing Marley And Me. "You know the feeling as you hit the glass door, and your nose is squished flat? It's like that. It really hurts. It makes your nose ring and your eyes pop out. It's devoid of laughter, or joy, or facial expressions that are recognisable."

It came out in 2009 - infamously the year in which Mark had pledged he would quit reviewing films altogether if there 10 movies released that were worse than Bride Wars. On a mathematical scale, he calculated that Couples Retreat was exactly as bad - but not worse - saving it from joining the expanding list. This became known as the Couples Retreat Quandary.