(Watch Last Vegas Online) If you’ve ever wondered what it would be like if your favorite actor took you up on your vow that you would watch him read the phone book, “Last Vegas” will give you an idea of what that performance might be like.

A thoroughly contrived and artificial bonbon that gives four screen legends of a certain age the opportunity to chase skirts and punch out guys a third of their age in some of Sin City’s glitziest nightclubs, “Last Vegas” lives and dies by the aggregate charm and charisma of its stars, since that’s pretty much all it has to offer.The film is a feature-length advertisement for the Aria resort (and its concomitant Cirque du Soleil show) with some male bonding and autumnal displays of testosterone thrown in for good measure. No one would begrudge Morgan Freeman the opportunity to have a flashy dance number on screen, but certainly there could be better venues for him to do so than this sexist sitcom.

(Watch Last Vegas Online) After his mentor dies alone, 70-ish swinging bachelor Billy (Michael Douglas) decides it’s time to tie the knot with his 30-ish girlfriend. Since he engineered the bachelor parties for all his childhood pals, they decide to return the favor in Vegas: for Archie (Freeman), it’s a chance to get away from the smothering concern of his son Ezra (Michael Ealy), who’s been overprotective since Archie’s stroke, and for Sam (Kevin Kline), the trip offers respite from his doddering peers in a Florida retirement community.Paddy (Robert De Niro), on the other hand, has had a lifelong rivalry with Billy — as kids, they both loved the same girl, who wound up marrying Paddy. The fact that Billy skipped her funeral one year previous has only made things worse. Still, Archie and Sam manage to get the still-grieving Paddy out of his apartment and onto a plane to Nevada.

(Watch Last Vegas Online) The Billy-Paddy rivalry blossoms anew when they both fall for lounge singer Diana (Mary Steenburgen, burdened with some really unflattering bangs). Beyond that, each of the men gets their little bit of plot that the screenplay by Dan Fogelman (“The Guilt Trip,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love”) makes clear will be resolved as neatly and tidily and blandly as possible.The situations (bikini contest! bar brawl!) feel like the stuff of a thousand prior Vegas movies, and the characters aren’t written with enough specificity to feel like the lifelong chums they’re supposed to be. But Douglas, De Niro, Freeman and Kline collectively stuff the movie into a sack and hoist it as high as they can manage.

(Watch Last Vegas Online) It’s the sort of film where the men are written with something resembling personalities, while the women (with the exception of Joanna Gleason, as Kline’s understanding wife, and Steenburgen) are divided into two categories: sexy young babes for our heroes (and the camera) to ogle, and chubby old frumps that the movie punishes for the crime of not giving Michael Douglas an erection.Ultimately, “Last Vegas” feels like a desperate attempt to graft “The Hangover” onto “Grumpy Old Men” (or, perhaps, “The Golden Girls”), and while the transplant never quite takes, you won’t lose your affection for the surgeons.

(Watch Last Vegas Online) If there’s any reason, however small, that we can calmly stomach the existence of a movie like Last Vegas, it’s that the ads for it don’t tout the pedigrees of the four lead actors. This, despite the fact that all four have Oscars on their mantels and plenty of other acting awards to boot. Why is that a good thing? Because there’s no need to see this film for its acting. Good heavens, no. These are four gents who have their legacies in the entertainment industry secured.(Download Last Vegas) All that they seem to be required to do at this point, really, is show up, coast through their scenes, and head back to their estates.And that bare minimum is precisely what you get in this picture. Four vaunted thespians phoning it in for 100 minutes and perhaps having a blast doing it. Don’t take that to mean I think you should spend your hard-earned money to see this in the theater. Wait until you get stuck on an airplane with a dead laptop battery and nothing to read. Then, and only then, should you accept Last Vegas into your life.

(Watch Last Vegas Online) Let’s knock the plot out of the way real quick like for anyone who hasn’t had a commercial for this thing shoved in their faces recently. The four leads are lifelong buddies who all get together in Las Vegas to send off the wealthy eternal bachelor (Michael Douglas) before he marries a woman who is about half his age. You get the three other senior citizen stereotypes as well: the sad, embittered widower (Robert DeNiro); a recovering stroke victim (Morgan Freeman) being coddled by his grown son; and the Florida retiree (Kevin Kline) who’s been given a free pass to cheat by (and on) his wife in the form of a condom and a Viagra.(Download Last Vegas) That this film only has a couple of little blue pill jokes is nothing short of a miracle. With everything set in motion, it’s just a race to see who learns a lesson the quickest and who can deliver the best one-liner before it all fades to black. Oh, and throw in a new love interest in the form of a fading lounge singer (Mary Steenburgen).

(Watch Last Vegas Online) Even with all these acting heavyweights onscreen together, it should surprise no one is that only Kevin Kline really has any facility with the comedic aspects of this film. His subtle line readings and bits of physical schtick are always a joy to watch, and this film is no exception. And in those few moments when he has to get “serious,” as when finally faced with the prospect of actually sleeping with another woman, he measures out his reactions carefully and tastefully.Would that we could say the same about his three compatriots, not to mention Romany Falco and Jerry Ferrara in ancillary roles, hamming it up considerably.(Download Last Vegas) As is their right, I guess, to act like don’t have nothing to prove to nobody at this point. Does that mean you should drop $12 or more dollars to watch them do all of that in the shadow of gaudy buildings and unchecked opulence? Fuck no. Just know that this film’s out there in the world harming no one and keeping four actors off the streets for a little while.