Honeymoon in Vegas (Blu-ray Review)
James Caan (The Godfather), Nicolas Cage (Face/Off) and Sarah Jessica Parker (“Sex in the City”) are three sides of a deliriously funny triangle that gambles with an off beat premise and hits the jackpot with big laughs! Jack Singer (Cage) is terrified of commitment but even more terrified of losing his beautiful school teacher fiancée Betsy (Parker). So as an act of faith, he takes the plunge and agrees to tie the knot in a quickie Vegas ceremony. But when he makes a bad $60,000 bet with mobster Tommy Korman (Caan), the marriage “knot” and all of Jack’s dreams starts unraveling fast. The only way that Korman will forgive the debt, he says, is if Jack will loan him Betsy for the rest of the weekend! It’s yet another sucker bet for Jack though because Korman plans to win Betsy away for good! I just finished reviewing Overboard, which arrived along with Honeymoon in Vegas. I recalled both films with fond memories. Overboard was everything I remembered and Honeymoon in Vegas left me wondering what was I thinking?
Film 
On his mother’s deathbed, she makes Jack Singer (Nicolas Cage) promise never to get married. He reluctantly promises and this adds to the many “mommy issues” he has, many of which manifest in his dreams. Years later, he meets and falls in love with a school teacher named Betsy (Sarah Jessica Parker). At first, Betsy is happy and doesn’t care about marriage but eventually the relationship becomes strained because she wants a commitment. Jack agrees to get married and the two head for Vegas.
In Vegas they check into Bally’s Hotel and Betsy catches the eye of professional gambler and all around bad guy Tommy Korman (James Caan). Tommy notices that Betsy is the doppelganger for his late wife and he arranges a poker game for “new guests” at the hotel. During the game, Jack is hustled and ends up owing Tommy $65,000. Singer is a private investigator and certainly cannot afford that kind of debt. He calls his bookie/dentist friend back home and finds out that Tommy Korman is a dangerous man and should be paid. Korman offers Jack a deal – he will erase the debt for a weekend with Betsy.
Jack brings the deal to Betsy, promising no sex is part of the deal. Understandably angry, she realizes they have no choice. She first has a meet and greet date with Korman in the hotel and then agrees to travel to Hawaii with him. Jack realizes this was a bad idea for many reasons and heads to Hawaii to get back his girl. Right of the airplane he meets a cabbie named Mahi Mahi (Pat Morita) who gives him the run around forcing him to steal a cab and end up in jail.
In the meantime, Tommy paints the picture of a lonely widower who only wants to make young Betsy happy. He declares his intentions to marry her himself. After Tommy lies to her saying the gambling debt was only $3000, Betsy agrees and her and Tommy head to Vegas to get married. Meanwhile, Jack is still pursuing Betsy and Tommy’s various airlines and airport connections make it hard for him to get back to Vegas. He ends up hitch hiking on the tarmac and catches a ride with a skydiving group of flying Elvises. Back in Vegas, Betsy is learning that Korman is not the man she thought he was. He arranged the card game, hustled her fiancée and isn’t taking no for an answer. When Jack skydives in his Elvis jumpsuit to be with her, she realizes he is the man she loves.
I didn’t even remember the part about his mother making him promise not to marry on his deathbed but who does that? And how do you start a movie with a dying mom saying don’t marry and no explanation? All she says is it will make him miserable. If the last thing you say to your son is never get married, you better have some pretty good reasons to back that up. I was most surprised that the acting was so bad overall. I feel like the movie was one long Saturday Night Live skit making fun of Nicolas Cage’s overacting. As a fan of Nicolas Cage, I was embarrassed by this movie. James Caan’s portrayal of Tommy Korman was like a combination of every bad New York Italian mob guy impression you’ve ever seen.
Honeymoon in Vegas was originally released in 1992 but visually it looked like a Saturday Night Live skit making fun of the 1980s. I was constantly distracted by the insanely high waisted pants on Nicolas Cage, and the big hair but even bigger bushy eyebrows of Sarah Jessica Parker. I thought I loved this movie, but I don’t even like it.
Video
Honeymoon in Vegas is presented on Blu ray with a widescreen 1:85.1 ratio. This is by far the worst transfer in recent memory. There is so much visual noise throughout the film; it could almost be classified as static. It is especially apparent in the interior scenes with light walls and it is very distracting throughout the film. Black levels and skin tones are extremely skewed. In one particular scene at night in bed, Sarah Jessica Parker’s face is barely recognizable in the shadows.
Audio 
Honeymoon in Vegas is presented in English 2.0 Surround DTS_HD Master Audio. There was nothing spectacular or impressive to discuss with the audio but it was better than the video quality. The dialogue was intelligible which was enough for me but don’t expect much more than that from this weak mix. Subtitles are available in English SDH, Spanish and French.
Special Features
The only special feature is a trailer for the movie. Given the fact that I did not enjoy the movie, the lack of special features did not disappoint me. It would have been interesting to have an interview with Cage and Parker to see if they are proud of the work they did.
Final Thoughts
I’m trying hard at this point to find good things to say about the movie and the only thing I can praise is the soundtrack. As expected in a Vegas movie with flying Elvises most of the soundtrack is devoted to Elvis, but I did enjoy the music throughout. I really don’t know why they released this one on Blu ray without cleaning it up more. I’m not usually not that picky about the video quality, but I was annoyed at this shoddy transfer throughout the movie. I was watching a Blu ray but felt like it was VHS. After watching Overboard, they clearly did a good job with that transfer but not this one!
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