Review of Grown Ups (2010) by Rainer K — 01 Sep 2012

To be honest, I don't know exactly why I'm even watching this. Like every other sincere cinephile I detest Adam Sandler and his mean-spirited, offending and stupid films.

In Grown Ups, he assembled his usual group of SNL friends but this time, gave them bigger roles to validate their paychecks. This group, with a surprisingly funny Chris Rock, decent David Spade and Kevin James and the godawful Sandler and Rob Schneider has arguably a bit of chemistry and it seems they're having some fun doing it. You kinda buy into the idea that these five have been friends since childhood and the characters' backgrounds are quite interesting indeed (although how they're used is abysmal).

The jokes are flat though and the funny moments (there are some few) come from slapstick. Although it's still above standard in these areas, it's not as over-the-top as Zohan and not as offending as Waterboy, That's My Boy or Jack and Jill. You could actually envision Grown Ups with other people than Sandler, Dugan and co envolved and with a lesser amount of stupidity it could have been a genuine childhood reunion movie (with spoiled kids, estranged families and melodramatic revivings of the past).

It is a Sandler movie after all though and therefore makes fun of ethnicities, handicapped people, old people, otherwise likable antics and so on and a great number of gags just comes from people farting.

Also, it's not particularly well-made. I don't know if Dugan just doesn't have the skills or if he does it in the cheapest way possible but everything from cinematography to editing is below Hollywood standard.

Bottom line, Sandler has made far worse movies but Grown Ups is still pretty messed up.