Honeymoon in Vegas

James Caan (The Godfather), Nicolas Cage (Face/Off) and Sarah Jessica Parker ("Sex inthe City") are three sides of a deliriously funny triangle in this "refreshing blast of comic lunacy" (WCBS-TV) that gambles with an offbeat premise and hits the jackpot with big laughs! Jack Singer (Cage) is terrified of commitment but even more terrified of losing his beautiful schoolteacher fiancÃ(c)e 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 dreamsstarts unraveling fast. The only way that Korman willforgive 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 thoughbecause Korman plans to win Betsy away for good!

Writer-director Andrew Bergman is capable of funny, funny stuff, but this movie runs out of jokes long before it runs out of comic ideas. The result is a series of comedy concepts that never get past the one-liner stage and are distinctly unsatisfying. Still, there is plenty to be amused by in this story of a reluctant bridegroom (Nicolas Cage) who finally agrees to marriage, only to lose his fiancée (Sarah Jessica Parker) in a crooked poker game to a professional gambler (James Caan). The rest of the movie deals with his frantic attempt to get his fiancée back, while coping with a Vegas in the throes of an Elvis-impersonator convention. That's the funniest thing about the whole movie (most notably the team of parachuting Elvises at the end), but even that is drawn out in ways that are more clever than laughter inducing. --Marshall Fine