'Spa Weekend' Review: A Tame and Formulaic Comedy That Feels Stuck in the Past
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Dan Bremner - August 26, 2026
The new female-led raunchy comedy from Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the pair behind both Bad Moms films. I know I’m not the target audience for these at all, but with the right material I can have a good time with the “girls’ night out” genre: Bridesmaids, Booksmart, Mean Girls and the like. It’s a type of film that streaming has largely killed off, so proper theatrical releases for them have become rare. There is something distinctly “2016” about Spa Weekend, that familiar star-led, low-effort raunchy comedy that used to turn up in cinemas every other month. Weirdly comforting in a way, even if what actually ended up on screen was a rarely funny comedy that hits every single beat you’d expect and features an incredibly obnoxious performance from Isla Fisher.
The premise is as formulaic as they come. Three stressed friends head off for a luxury spa weekend, only for their chaotic fourth friend to turn up and ruin it. It’s the same “friends’ getaway goes wrong” template you’ve seen in The Hangover, Bad Moms and a dozen others, just without any of the energy or invention that made the better ones work. You can see every turn coming a mile off, with absolutely nothing fresh, surprising or different to at least keep it memorable.
For a film that wants to be raucous and anarchic, the hijinks are strangely tame. Golf carts, mud fights, goat yoga, strippers, it’s all present and correct, but everything feels polite and low-energy rather than genuinely crazy or unhinged. The “wild” moments land as tired and expected, and the overall tone is lukewarm at best. The comedy writing is weak across the board. It's predictable and crass without being clever, and mostly just not funny. It never finds a way to balance the raunchy “girls gone wild” energy with the heart warming friendship stuff, so both sides end up feeling neutered.
The characters are pure archetypes and not much else. You’ve got the high-strung control-freak lawyer (Leslie Mann), the angry divorcée (Michelle Buteau), the people-pleasing pushover (Anna Faris) and the foul-mouthed trainwreck (Isla Fisher). Their backstories and personal problems are quickly established with little effort, which makes it hard to care about any of the conflict or the eventual re-bonding. Isla Fisher, as the chaotic one, is particularly hard work, pitched at a level of obnoxiousness that the film seems to think is endearing but mostly just grates and I found every second of her screentime insufferable. The sort of friend you would be glad to stop seeing, and the characters acknowledge that, but by the end, if you can believe it, they realise her presence is an important element of the group. Bullshit. If you're in your 40s and still have a friend that defines their personality by constantly getting hammered and railing coke, get rid of them.
There are a few lines and moments that do land, mostly thanks to Anna Faris, who still knows how to deliver a gag even when the material isn’t doing her any favours. The brief 97-minute runtime also helps stop it from completely outstaying its welcome. Beyond that, though, there’s not really a lot here to recommend outside of it becoming some harmless background noise on streaming a few months down the line.
Spa Weekend feels like a film from a different time, which is both comforting and understandable why we rarely get this sort of raunchy, female-led comedy anymore. A few funny moments and a brief run-time keep Spa Weekend from being a total wash, but it's mostly just a tame, formulaic and deeply forgettable comedy that will probably find an audience on streaming at some point.
'Spa Weekend' released in cinemas on August 21, 2026.
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