Vince Vaughn: The New Super-Sized Tom Hanks?

Before: On the Hunt.

After: Snoozing in a Tree Digesting a Billy Goat.

We're not the first ones to point it out, but just saw the trailer for Vince Vaughn's new flick The Dilemma, and shit is out of control. The movie looks godawful, but after Couples Retreat it's still a step up because the premise limits the scenes of Vaughn in a swimsuit. Other than that it's unclear why Vaughn would sign up for Ron Howard's follow up to last year's uber-awesome Angels and Demons. Maybe he's hoping to be the new Tom Hanks, and hitch his chuck wagon to Ron Howard who must be running out of Dan Brown novels to bore us with.

Afterall, Tom Hanks is the gold standard for getting work when you're overweight and balding. Take Saving Private Ryan: everyone but Tom Hanks looks appropriately gaunt and haggard like maybe there's a war on. Apparently Tom Hanks' character found the only Denny's in the European Theater and had been rocking the Grand Slam breakfast four times a day since Pearl Harbor. Vince Vaughn loves Saving Private Ryan. Guaranteed, he gets all misty-eyed watching Tom Hanks waddle up the beach at Normandy. Downright inspired, and Vince is probably thinking, "hey, I can waddle every bit as good as Tom Hanks who ain't getting any younger." Ron Howard is just the first, labored step.

Which brings us to the question, what the fuck happened to Vince Vaughn? Cause thinking back on him in Swingers, it's clear to see that he's accumulated some mileage on those tires. Vaughn is forty now; Charlie Sheen and Robert Downey Jr. are each five years older than him and have Mexican drug cartels named in their honor yet Vaughn still looks like warm ass by comparison. How is that possible? He's become a celebrity turducken except instead of a duck someone deboned Jon Favereau and jammed him up Vaughn's ass before the deep fat frying. He's just all swolled up... did he lose a bet and have to dry hump a hornet's nest?

Needlessly cruel? Perhaps, but we're not questioning his right to let himself go to hell. This is America, where we are free to eat, drink and wallow in our diminished quality of life. All we're questioning is why we have to watch it on screen. Shouldn't Vaughn be relegated to Lifetime movies by now with the occasional moving comeback appearance on Oprah thrown in every three years? Name one actress that would be allowed to gorge themselves until their jawline vanished like the polar ice cap and still land leading roles. Cause it sure ain't Kirstie Alley playing Vince's love interest, no, it's skinny Jennifer Connelly who is smaller than Michael Cera's range. She weighs less than the Lost Box Set - missionary position with Vaughn would be a death sentence. She would simply fossilize under the enormous, geothermal pressure.

We're not saying there's not a place for fat white guys in movies, there is, it just isn't on top of Jennifer Connelly. What is the deal with forcing us to watch women with gym memberships mate with the Dunkin' Donuts guy? We would have bought Connelly and Vaughn fifteen years ago, but now it just looks like a celluloid mercy fuck gone wrong. And Kevin James, also in The Proposal, somehow landed Winona Ryder as his love interest. Kevin James outweighs Jennifer Connelly and Winona Ryder combined. It strains credulity, and we're sick of the myth that charming and funny cancels out porcine and rotund.

Look, all we're saying is it ought to be a warning sign when you're cast in a movie with Kevin James and "the fat one" doesn't clear anything up. Will Smith didn't have that problem in Hitch, trust us. So either pull your shit together Vaughn, or else lobby for Kathy Bates as your love interest.