Honeymoon in Vegas (1992)

Too much of everything

SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This is the better of the two early 90s films about a love struck fiancé who loses his woman over a gambling debt or money situation. I didn't like "Indecent proposal" as much, this one's better.Jack (Nick Cage) is lucky to have Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker). She was beautiful back in 1992, had great curves and a beautiful golden tan. This was her pre "Sex in the city" days, a show I never got into.The opening was both sad and kind of creepy, an understandably sad, difficult situation Jack watching his mother die right in front of him, her last words being "don't ever get married". Then, I found it creepy, re- showing his mother's face the moment she died as the first picture of the comic cartoon film credits introduction. They re-showed that picture for comic effect, which I found bad taste. I don't dislike the cartoon intros in general though. The late 1980s and early 1990s seemed to be a time when comical cartoon intros were common in PG, PG13 movies, including both "City slickers" films, "Don't tell mom, the babysitter's dead", " Ruthless people" "Mannequin", and others. Betsy wants to marry Jack, who keeps backing out due to his mother's dying words. Jack's job is secretly taking photos of men's girlfriends/wives who are suspected cheating on them. This includes a guy who says his wife is hooking up with Mike Tyson (lol). Jack poses as a street vendor waiting for suspected parties. He's also a regular amateur card player for stakes and makes sporting events bets with his dentist/ bookie friend Sal, both things Betsy was getting tired of Jack doing.Finally, Jack insists on going with Betsy to Vegas to marry, Betsy's delighted. They get there, have a romantic session in their Vegas Bally hotel suite, and then Jack decides to play poker and once again procrastinate the wedding. Betsy has already been getting tired of his constant gambling back home. The game is pre arranged by Tommy Corman (James Cann) who sees Betsy who looks identical to his late wife (funny comment when Tommy sees Jack and Betsy totally making out in the lobby and says "there's no way they're married"). Tommy immediately gets obsessed with her,and sets the whole game up so he can use being with her as Jack's penalty for losing his hand in the game (which he's already so sure will happen). The game was definitely set up, and even though the movie doesn't make it 100% clear, I'm sure Tommy winning was set up too. Jack and Betsy still thought that the game was random at that point and Jack just got unlucky, they knew the debt had to be paid and Betsy knew she had to go along with it. It was Vegas, gambling is gambling, and they knew they couldn't welch. But what Tommy really did was psychotic, and they hadn't learned that yet.Betsy's reluctance to go with Tommy sure lessened when going to his lush Beach house in Kawii, Hawaii (even though Betsy grew tired quickly of Tommy talking Hawaiian, telling him "you can knock off the Hawaiian now" after only his second time of saying a Hawaiian phrase). Jack's rage shot up through everything going on. He yelled a lot, but he had a hell of a situation (even though he made a bad choice playing in that poker game).Then Jack runs back to New York (blowing up at the frantic guy crying about his wife being with Mike Tyson, but Jack was even more frantic), then he flies to Kuaii running all over the island never quite reaching Betsy. Once he almost does but Tommy tackles him on a golf field at night then immediately turns over onto his back when the police come making it look like Jack attacked him. After the cops take Jack away only 50 yards from where Betsy was gazing out into the ocean, she says "funny, I thought I could hear voices in the wind, like in Whethering heights, and the voice sounded like Jack's".Pat Norita (the only time I ever saw him in anything besides Mr. Miyagi in the "The Karate kid" films and on "Happy days") as Mahi Mahi, "just like the fish" Jack says. Mahi's specifically instructed to keep him away from Tommy and therefore insists on taking him anywhere but. This takes us to a funny scene with Jack visiting "Cheif Orman's" simple island shack. Jack's still yelling a lot, but how would you've felt in his shoes? Everything Tommy did to him was lowdown, sleazy, and heartless (he was never presented as a decent guy from the start when grabbing, twisting the Bally manager's nether regions when he couldn't reserve his suite). Mahi eventually learned what Tommy's done to Jack, how he set up the whole poker game just to steal his fiancé, lied to her to further convince her not to go back to him (such as telling her he lost only $3,000 instead of the $64,000 it really was), ordered him to keep Jack away from her, and then announced his going back to Vegas to marry Betsy. Mahi now felt sorry for Jack and dropped the charges of him stealing his cab.Jack flies back to the mainland, but due to no direct flights to Vegas, he flies to Amarillo, Texas where he runs into the flying Elvis Presley skydivers boarding a plane to fly over Vegas where they're all to parachute out. Jack joins them, are there are some funny moments when he's with all them (Elvis skydiver to Jack: "pull the yellow than red cord. Jack: "what if I get flustered and accidentally pull red than yellow?" Elvis skydiver: "then you're gonna look like a well done chilliburger and they'll have to scoop you off the strip").

The romantic comedy genre generally deals with the manner in which a young couple overcome an obstacle to their love, and the obstacle which confronts Jack Singer and his girlfriend, Betsy, in "Honeymoon in Vegas" is an unusual one; Jack has sworn to his mother never to marry while she was on her deathbed. Eventually, however, he gives in to Betsy's entreaties and agrees to go back on his promise. The two arrange to get married in Las Vegas, but on arrival in the city another obstacle presents itself. Betsy catches the eye of a wealthy professional gambler named Tommy Korman because she reminds him of his late wife. After winning $65,000 from Jack in a crooked poker game, Korman agrees to forgive the debt if Jack will allow him to spend the weekend with Betsy.The situation is somewhat reminiscent of that from another film from the early nineties, "Indecent Proposal", in which a wealthy man offers a young married couple $1,000,000 to spend a night with the wife. "Indecent Proposal", however, was intended as a serious drama, whereas "Honeymoon in Vegas" is played for laughs. Moreover, in "Indecent Proposal" the young woman, played by Demi Moore, was expected to sleep with Robert Redford's millionaire; here, Betsy only (reluctantly) agrees to go along with Korman's proposal on a strict "no sex" basis. Nevertheless, during the weekend they spend in Hawaii, Betsy finds herself falling for Korman. Can Jack win her back? With his lanky figure and long, lugubrious-looking face, Nicolas Cage does not really have the looks of a Hollywood leading man, but here he seems admirably suited to the role of Jack, the sort of lovable if eccentric loser who eventually turns out to be a winner, and deservedly so because for all his faults and eccentricities he is basically decent. In the final scene Jack has to make a parachute jump from 3,000 feet with a team of skydiving Elvis impersonators in order to reach Betsy before Korman can marry her. This struck me as a modern, comic take on all those old legends in which a hero or knight-errant has to perform some brave feat in order to win the hand of a fair lady. James Caan's Korman, by contrast, might initially seem affable, but beneath a jovial exterior he has a mean streak a mile wide, a streak which starts to show as soon as anyone crosses him. As they say, lucky at cards, unlucky in love.I was less taken with Sarah Jessica Parker, perhaps because I am so used to her as the hard, brassy Carrie Bradshaw from "Sex and the City" that it was difficult for me to accept her as a softer character like Betsy. One character I could have done with less of was the annoying Pat Morita's Mahi Mahi, Tommy's Hawaiian driver charged with trying to keep Jack away from Tommy and Betsy. Overall, however, "Honeymoon in Vegas" is an agreeable and occasionally amusing, if slight, rom-com. 6/10

This was what "Indecent Proposal" wasn't and couldn't be: a watchable movie dealing with a unusual situation and make fun of it. Instead of a boring melodrama as Lyne film was "Honeymoon in Vegas" (awkward title considering that the main characters weren't married yet) is a funny and entertaining story.The movie tells the story of Jack (Nicolas Cage) a detective afraid of commitment after a promise he made to his mother (Anne Bancroft) on her deathbed: never marry. He's dating a beautiful woman (Sarah Jessica Parker) who wants to get involved in a serious relationship, wants to raise a family and what these two are gonna do? They make a trip to Vegas to marry but he gets involved in a poker gambling with a gangster (James Caan, he's a master in creating these types of role), loses a large amount of money (which he doesn't have). The gangster makes a strange proposition to Jack: he doesn't need to pay his debt but instead he wants to spend a weekend with Jack's girl. From this point the movie enters in typical and clichéd comical situations and some funny and original moments (like all the Elvis Presley impersonators that appears countless times).The trio of actors is very good, Cage and Caan offer great funny moments; Pat Morita playing a taxi driver that impeaches Cage of trying to reach his destiny is incredibly funny and has some of the greatest lines in the film. It is a good film, enjoyable for the most part but it hardly takes off from being a great movie. But director Andrew Bergman knew how to take advantage of a strange situation and show to viewers its comical aspects, and this was a huge deal considering that in the following year a disappointing film appeared using the same strategy and turning into a annoying drama that needed so few to really be a good film. And this little gem succeed it. 6/10

This was supposed to be a great comedy, but I didn't find a man losing his wife in a poker game to be something to laugh about, nor did I find it cool that the woman would have a fling with the gambler who "won" her. All of that is supposed to be "hilarious," to all the mainline film critics. Well, I guess that's just another of the thousands of examples of how sick film people are, on both sides of the camera. The lower the values, the more they like it, and vice-versa.And while your at it, Hollywood: stop with all the Elvis imitations. That's getting tiresome, especially in Vegas. So was Nicolas Cage's constant yelling in here. This movie will give you a headache in addition to making you nauseous. This is one honeymoon you want to skip.