Grown Ups Is For Kids Only

By Siobhan Dixon

Take an all-star cast from Saturday Night Live’s early 90s heyday, throw in the director of box office hits like Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore, and sprinkle in a little Salma Hayek, because really, life is always better with a little Salma Hayek (the woman is hot!), and you’ve got a recipe for comic gold right? Wrong!

Sorry folks, but once again I come bearing bad news––it’s another bad movie: Grown Ups. In fairness, let’s call on the old adage, “Don’t shoot the messenger,” i.e. please don’t blame us for what may seem like a string of scathing or overly critical reviews.

Instead let’s line up all the terrible directors and writers, all the talented actors for giving such poor performances, and all the production companies for funding such recent crap as Dear John, Chloe, Splice, and Sex and the City 2, and take them out execution style.

We find ourselves in such dire straits that we’ve considered changing the name of the site to Two Black Girls at Bad Movies or reviewing old DVDs. However, we are going to stick it out for the love of the art form, the sake of our readers, and an excuse to eat wings and drink cocktails at Dallas BBQs once week!

The premise of Grown Ups is simple: five childhood friends––Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Kevin James––return to their hometown after 30 years for the funeral of their seventh grade basketball coach who led them all to a championship.

While it’s unclear whether or not the men stayed in touch over the years, they immediately revert back to their boy-like banter once they reunite for a weekend with their families at the same lake house where they celebrated their basketball championship decades earlier. Conveniently, the funeral just so happens to fall on the Fourth of July weekend. Right.

Adam Sandler plays a successful Hollywood agent, married to an equally thriving fashion designer, Salma Hayek. Their three spoiled kids are completely dependent on technology and their Asian nanny (too easy, so I’ll just leave that one alone) who the couple tries to pass off as a foreign exchange student to their friends.

David Spade portrays the single, immature bum of the crew whose pastimes still include getting wasted and chasing young tail.

Chris Rock is totally unconvincing as an underappreciated stay-at-home dad of two whose wife, played by SNL’s Maya Rudolph, is the family breadwinner. His life is further perturbed by the presence of his wife’s mother, aka the “big momma” character, (again, just not gona go there this time, but rest assured, I will) who lives with the family and with whom he constantly butts heads.

Kevin James plays a middleclass man who rents a fancy car for the weekend to keep up false appearances. Meanwhile, his wife, played by Maria Bello, inappropriately pulls out her boobs at any given place or time to breast feed their four-year-old son.

Rob Schneider takes the role of a nonviolent spiritualist married to a similarly peace-loving woman at least 20 years his senior. He has a severe short-man’s complex, so he wears a ridiculous six-inch toupee that lifts into the air every time the wind blows.

This film is plagued with flaws, namely, there is no storyline––whatsoever! Once the men and their wives and children arrive at the lake house the plot essentially consists of what I like to call “bad white boy humor,” meaning lots of farts and burps, repeated injuries to the male nether regions, and constant dainty shots of hot young girls in booty shorts and bikinis.

Still, the primary issue with the film is that the characters, not the actors, seem aware that they are in a comedy movie! I suppose the dialogue is intended to simulate how a group of male friends crack jokes on each other, but with lines like, “Oh my god, it’s captain caring of the S.S. melodrama” and “Don’t say that he resembles a midget Filipino Fonzie,” it’s just plain unrealistic.

Had the film been about the reconvening of five childhood friends all turned comedians, then perhaps the nonstop standup comedy conversations might ring true. However, regular people do not incessantly speak in perfectly timed, witty one-liners! To boot, the deliveries are lazy and the characters laugh at each others’ and even worse, their own jokes! That’s never a good sign.

The overarching theme of Grown Ups is a total cliché––present-day adults and kids alike are out of touch with nature and childlike innocence. But I think the real purpose of the film was for the old SNL crew to have their own little reunion where they didn’t have to do much acting, but instead just horse around while the cameras rolled and make a little money while doing it––the movie did make over $40 million it's opening weekend.

Luckily, we got an advanced and more importantly a free screening, so hopefully this review finds you in time.

Rating: Kids will love the callow, campy comedy of this film, but anyone over the age of 21 (or 19 for our Canadian readers!) may need a nice glass of wine afterwards. Nothing too strong––this is not as bad as Sex and the City 2.