Review: Sex Tape

City Paper grade: C-

For all its racy promise, Sex Tape is a dull drop in the "edgy" rom-com bucket, approaching the beaten-dead topic of post-kids coitus so deliberately that it's easiest to just lay there, waiting for it to end. Sex-crazed college sweethearts turned busy married parents, Jay (Jason Segel) and Annie (Cameron Diaz) just don't have time to do it anymore, thanks to his career doing something vague with music and her burgeoning reputation as a mommy blogger. ("How do you get it back?" her Carrie Bradshaw internal monologue ponders while she sits in front of her laptop wearing a sensible house outfit.) When an opportunity for a night without the little ones presents itself, Annie comes up with a zany idea — recording a marathon screw sesh using one of Jay's work iPads! But when he accidentally syncs and shares the video with dozens of friends — which is unrealistic since it's impossible to successfully sync anything with anything — they embark on a frantic mission to contain the clip and prevent embarrassment. The stakes are remarkably low, but that doesn't stop the characters from running around like they're trying to defuse the nuclear bomb from the last Batman movie, backing into a stable of useless fringe characters along the way. It's proof that self-conscious raunch, even in the hands of likable comedic actors, is usually just boring.