Back in 2011, Bad Teacher turned into a minor hit, with a US gross of a little over $100 million. 2014’s Sex Tape brought us a reunion of Teacher’s leads and director but without the same box office success, as it took in a relatively poor $33 million in the US.

Despite the movie’s commercial disappointment, I thought it sounded interesting enough to take a look. After years of marriage and two kids, Annie (Cameron Diaz) and Jay (Jason Segel) lose the sexual spark from their relationship. Attempts to rekindle the magic of their younger days fail until Annie suggests that they make a porn video of themselves. They use Jay’s iPad to do so and enjoy the hottest sex they’ve had in eons.

After this ends, Annie tells Jay to delete the video, but instead, he accidentally allows it to upload to the cloud. This means a mix of friends, relatives and acquaintances gain access to Jay and Annie’s sex tape. We follow their desperate efforts to deal with the situation.

Like many movies, Tape comes with a fun premise, but unfortunately, it takes the wrong path. Rather than pursue a logical comedic look at how the characters would handle the repercussions of their video, Tape attempts to become an outrageous romp along the lines of Date Night. The film places two ordinary people in a variety of outrageous circumstances that it attempts to milk for comedy.

“Attempts” offers the operative term, as almost literally no laughs result. One large problem comes from the film’s absence of reality. Again, it offers a situation that could affect many people but rather than shoot for laughs from believable situations, it goes to absurd extremes.

That could be fine, as I don’t insist comedies remain reality based. However, I do insist that they be funny, so if Tape invested in its wacky situations in a humorous way, I’d be fine with it.

Unfortunately, the film mistakes “stupid” for “funny” and never manages to find anything entertaining. In a good movie, I barely notice logic issues, but in a bad one, these stand out and become a bigger distraction. The plot holes in Tape become enormous and the movie forces the characters to act like such morons that it seems tough to accept they can maintain enough brain functioning to stay alive.

Once again, if these circumstances somehow generated amusement, I’d overlook them, but the absence of mirth hits an extreme level here. Tape includes a strong cast, as in addition to Segel and Diaz, we find talents like Rob Corddry, Ellie Kemper and others.

Not a single one of them can muster any comedy from the idiotic script. Instead, the actors usually look vaguely embarrassed to be there, as if they understand the poor quality of the material and just want to get through the project as fast as possible. There’s a distinct lack of enthusiasm on display in this dull, joyless effort.

Even at a brief 94 minutes, Tape wears out its welcome well before it ends. More than most other genres, bad comedy makes time pass slowly, so the crushing absence of laughs turns into a serious problem. The idiotic, rambling narrative never threatens to work and it drags the viewer under the bus with it.

I wasn’t wild about Bad Teacher, but it looks pretty good compared to Sex Tape. At least I found a few entertaining moments in Teacher, whereas Tape ends up as a painful and witless experience.

Sex Tape appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Like one would expect of a modern Hollywood affair, the transfer looked good.

Sharpness seemed fine. Little to no softness occurred, so the movie appeared consistently tight and accurate. No issues with jaggies or moiré effects occurred, and I witnessed no edge haloes. Print flaws failed to mar the presentation.

In terms of colors, Tape went with a teal/orange feel. That palette surprised me, as I wouldn’t associate those hues with a comedy. Whether or not the choices made sense, the hues were reproduced well given the parameters involved. Blacks seemed deep enough, and shadows showed fairly good smoothness; some low-light shots could be a bit dense but they remained more than watchable. Overall, I felt pleased with the image.

I didn’t anticipate a slambang DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack from Sex Tape, and the audio followed expectations. For the most part, the soundscape didn’t have much to do, as it tended toward general ambience. The scenes used the side and back speakers in a mildly engaging manner, and the track provided solid music from all the channels. These components didn’t bring a whole lot to the package, so this remained a laid-back mix.

Audio quality was satisfactory. Music sounded peppy and full, while effects were reasonably accurate and concise. Speech sounded natural and easily intelligible. Though nothing here impressed, the track was appropriate for the material.

A handful of extras fill out the set. Bloopers occupy five minutes, 17 seconds and show the usual goofs and giggles. Don’t expect anything more interesting from the set.

Under Line-O-Rama, we find a four-minute, 55-second collection. This area shows alternate takes/lines for various scenes. These provide some interesting variations but nothing spectacular.

Three Deleted/Extended Scenes appear. We get “Rosie” (4:56), “The Mailman” (0:44), and “Bi-Athlete” (0:47). Some minor moments result but they don’t contribute a lot of interest.

After this we locate three featurettes. Romance Reboot with Dr. Jenn Berman goes for nine minutes, 45 seconds and includes notes from Berman, a therapist who appears on VH1. This looks at sex in the 21st century and some of the topics depicted in the film. The show delivers a mildly interesting view of these subjects.

Capturing the Moment runs five minutes, 48 seconds and features director Jake Kasdan and actors Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel. They touch on story/character areas, cast and performances, shooting the sex scenes and related areas. The piece’s brevity robs it of depth but it turns into a reasonable overview.

Finally, we find the two-minute, 27-second Meet Hank Rosenbaum. This shows Rob Lowe in character as he discusses the unusual art in his house. It’s a cute but insubstantial addition.

The disc opens with ads for 22 Jump Street, Home Sweet Hell, Space Station 76 and What If. No trailer for Sex Tape shows up here.

With a lot of good talent involved and a fun premise, Sex Tape should provide a witty romp. Instead, it gives us a tepid, tedious attempt at comedy with little to no amusement as a result. The Blu-ray offers very good picture, decent audio and a smattering of minor supplements. Chalk up Sex Tape as a dopey disappointment