WANDERLUST:
Trying to cut out a piece of the sweet life for themselves in Manhattan George (played by Paul Rudd) and his wife Linda (played by Jennifer Aniston) move into their small but very expensive apartment. When George looses his job and HBO passes on the movie that Linda made, the couple have to sell their apartment and move in with George’s older brother in Atlanta to keep from becoming homeless. Needing to rest from the long drive, George and Linda pull into the Elysium B&B but instead find themselves in the middle of a hippie commune. With a policy of sharing everything, fun, and free-love even with each other, George and Linda at first can’t deal with not have a door or privacy when going to the bathroom. For George the hippie life is not for him and to make matters worse, Linda has joined in the full spirit of the commune and loves every minute of it.

DON’T DRINK THE KOOL-AID:
I remember seeing the trailers for Wanderlust and thinking that it looked like it would be a funny movie. How could it not be funny with a cast of Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Alan Alda, and Malin Akerman? Well, I tell you how, by doing everything they do in this movie. It’s such a simple plot, one that should have been full of laughter, corny jokes, and uncomfortable sexual situations for the characters but instead it’s full of stale jokes, a few laughs, and uncomfortable sexual situations for me. Though I wasn’t surprised by the crude jokes, the over abundance of nudity that I didn’t want to see, that’s been used by director David Wain. His style of humor is crude, rude, dirty, suited mainly for 17 to 35 year olds but for the most part is usually funny.

Wanderlust starts of pretty good, I liked the opening sequence of the characters George and Linda dealing with their new apartment that’s the size of a small SUV. There’s even some funny moments when the plot finally progresses to having the characters living in the community with all the really odd, naked hippies that want to promote free love and peace. This is the classic opposites attract comedy with the characters George and Linda being from New York City but end up in a slow paced, no technology, hippie commune where nudity and sleeping with each other is no big deal.

But the movie flunders with the humor and it feels forced. I get why the character of the older brother Rick (played by Ken Merino) was made to be a huge jerk that got on everyones nerves, it sets up George and Linda to move into the hippie community, but the character was pushed over the edge of being the funny jerk to just being annoying to watch. Most of the jokes seem to be taken past the point of being funny and I don’t mean where this movie is testing the limits like saying certain phrases but because it was just too much. For example, one scene involving Paul Rudd trying to talk himself into having sex has him doing the scene while looking in a mirror to boost his confidence. Now at first it was funny, the things he was saying, the way he was saying it, and the faces he was making, all funny. But then it kept going, and going, and going where how it started off funny quickly became old.

Now I’m by means no prude when it comes to watching a movie that likes to push the limits, I actually like when movies push the limits, it gives future movies possibilities. However, there is pushing the limit by having lots of nudity in the movie and then there’s Wanderlust that features full frontal nudity of aging (and when I say aging I mean men and women who look fit for retirement) running around while the frame rate slows down. I was really wanting this movie to be funny and a lot of fun to watch but it only ended up being mildly amusing. Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston don’t have good chemistry in this movie, Alan Alda only shows up a few times and when he does he says the same thing over and over, and nearly everything that happens is predictable. The only really funny moments involve the car in the pond and the gag reel on the bonus features.

BLU-RAY WANDER:
Not a remarkably impressive Blu Ray, it does what a Blu Ray is supposed when it comes to the picture quality and special features but falls short with the audio. The picture quality on this Blu Ray is nice, it has no grain or noise in the scenes, the colors stand out nicely, and it makes everything all bright and shiny. But when listening to the movie I found that some of the dialog scenes where at low levels making it a little hard to hear what was being said. It wasn’t too bad but I was still had to keep my remote control in my hand as I watched it. What really makes this a nice Blu Ray though are the special features that have been put on it, there’s an alternative cut to the movie that boast “different jokes in every scene” and I really enjoyed the gag reel.