“Couples Retreat” bills itself as a comedy — the trailers portray it as a mildly amusing… “Couples Retreat” bills itself as a comedy — the trailers portray it as a mildly amusing romantic romp through paradise.

The trailers could not be more misleading. Abandon all humor, ye who enter here, because this isn’t a comedy. It’s a terribly paced and uneven b*tch-fest with a horrifically unfunny script, phoned-in performances and a group of characters that run the gamut from whiny and irritating to morally corrupt and parentally unfit.

Following four couples — portrayed mostly by a dream-team of actors and actresses who should be embarrassed by what transpires on screen — who take a vacation to a beautiful resort to work out their various marital issues, the film allows the audience to be privy to practically every heterosexual relationship dysfunction possible past the age of 40.

There are divorcees, soon-to-be-divorcees, should-be-divorcees and a couple that doesn’t even realize that they have issues until they arrive at Eden West, the couples-only side of the island.

From the writing team of Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, I was expecting some “Swingers”-style wittiness. Instead, the two troll through their own pithy dialogue with the enthusiasm of a dying snail — I had to hold my head just to make sure my brain wasn’t leaking out. The rest of the cast fares no better — Kristin Davis (“Sex and the City”) flails around as Favreau’s cheating wife and Kristen Bell (“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) looks about ten years too young for her role.

Listening to these self-loathing characters exploit every faux-comical aspect of what happens when marriage and love don’t really work is the equivalent to being cinematically water-boarded. You feel like there is no hope, neither for the film nor your own romantic future. But when the film ends, it’s just something you try to forget as soon as possible.

The only highlight of the film comes when the couples venture to the other side of their resort — the swinging singles side. At Eden East, young twenty-somethings shed clothing and inhibitions in a big dance party, and their looks of happiness beg the question of the audience: Why wouldn’t all the other miserable married couples want to be this happy?

Call me young, call me cynical, call me naive — if this is what a couples vacation and marriage is like, I’ll stick to spring break and singledom for as long as possible.

Grade: D-

-Kieran Layton, A & E Editor

Feel free to judge a movie by its trailer, at least when it comes to “Couples Retreat.”

The highlight of the movie arrives when the adorable son of Vince Vaughn’s character stares at his dad in bed when they both wake up and say, “I peed.” Yes, you could see this from watching the first 30 seconds of the preview.

Buy a ticket to “Couples Retreat” and you enter a world where four couples decide, with less than one week’s notice, to shell out thousands of dollars to fly to an all-inclusive island resort.

They put their careers on hold, dip into previously non-existent savings accounts (at the beginning of the film, one character asks another for a loan to buy a motorcycle) and Grandpa mysteriously appears to take care of the kids.

Arrive in paradise and — oh wait — Jon Favreau is too distracted by college students to pay attention to his wife, the practically perfect Kristin Davis.

Jason Bateman and his on-screen wife, Kristen Bell, eagerly wake up before 6 a.m. to rush to therapy sessions that they hope will save their probably doomed-from-the-start marriage.

A grating therapist essentially creates problems for the otherwise happy Vaughn and Malin Akerman, while 39-year-old Faizon Love runs around with Kali Hawk’s character, a 20-year-old party-loving sugar baby. She even refers to him as “daddy.”

But sadly, the bizarre nature of the pairings is nothing compared to the writing and terribly overt product placement.

When the couples arrive on the unnamed island, the resort’s owner, Jean Reno’s Marcel —­­ no last name needed, apparently — tells them he’ll try to analyze their animal spirits so he can solve their marital problems.

Add a scene where Bateman moves his fingers into the shape of a gun and pretends to shoot his therapist, and the movie becomes a little too sad to laugh at.

A pointless and extended promotion for “Guitar Hero” brings the film to a screeching halt — not as if it weren’t a torturously slow endeavor before. And really, does the game need any more publicity?

For what feels like 30 minutes, but is in fact probably less than five, Vaughn challenges the resort’s bell-boy-of-sorts to a “Guitar Hero” play-off.

A giant screen drops down from the ceiling, and the guys begin to awkwardly thrash while trying to vicariously fulfill their rock-star fantasies.

Nice try Vaughn, but next time you should probably stick to the acting instead of writing. And even then, make it something better than this rom-com drivel.

Grade: D

-Liz Navratil, Contributing Editor