Vegas really lives up to its Sin City tag in this savage rom-com starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. Both independently arrive in town to booze and gamble their way out of the blues - she has been dumped, and he has been fired. After a night of carnage, Joy and Jack wake up rueful, hungover and married to each other. They awkwardly agree to a divorce, but then Jack hits the jackpot with the quarter that Joy has given him and the stakes are raised as both argue that the money is rightfully theirs.

In the kind of legal ruling that only happens in Hollywood comedies, the judge decrees that the pair must try to make a go of their ill-conceived union. So the uptight career girl Joy moves into the slacker Jack's grubby bachelor pad and a rather glum Queen Latifah dispenses wisdom as their court-appointed marriage guidance counsellor. Cue numerous battle-of-the-sexes gags, some of which are mildly amusing but most of which are tired and old - does anyone really believe that there is still comedy mileage left in toilet-seat arguments? The battle really heats up when both independently realise that if they can get the other to back out of the marriage, then the money will be all theirs. Of course, beneath the mutual antipathy, there is a flicker of attraction.

Jack and Joy are petty and spiteful but not bright enough to be really creatively unpleasant to each other. Although they are both exceptionally photogenic, they are simply not particularly likeable characters, which is probably why their mutual sidekicks (played by Rob Corddry and Lake Bell) are pathologically horrible - in comparison with these toxic best friends, anyone would seem sympathetic. It is a disappointingly generic follow-up for the director Tom Vaughan, who made his name with the lively and likeable Starter for Ten.

12A, 99min

Editor's choice

• The End: the worst movie endings ever
• Introducing The Times Proms Podcast
• Heath Ledger tipped for Oscar