Plot: Five gradeschool friends return to New England for the funeral of their childhood basketball coach. While the five have gone their separate ways, Lenny Feder (Adam Sandler) decides to rent a cabin for the weekend near their old stomping grounds hoping to recapture the spirit of his lost youth and reconnect with his increasingly distant family.
Review: If the above plot summary sounded cliche the reason is quite simple: because this movie is a cliche. Director Dennis Dugan's Grown Ups is a mildly entertaining buddy comedy from Adam Sandler whose movies over the past several years have degenerated into fodder for critics. While Grown Ups is certainly not as bad as say Little Nicky or Anger Management, Happy Gilmore this isn't.
The main problem with Grown Ups was that I was never emotionally invested in the characters. I know this is an Adam Sandler film and I'm not expecting a lot of depth here but the characters are so stock, it is clear writers Fred Wolf and Adam Sandler phoned it in.
Eric Lamonsoff (Kevin James) is the token fat guy (shocking!) hiding a secret about his job, Marcus Higgins (David Spade) is a sarcastic (again shocking!) womanizer who doesn't seem to want to grow up, Kurt McKenzie (Chris Rock) is a stay at home Dad and would be cook. And then there is Rob Hilliard (Rob Schneider) who has three failed marriages and has a strange fascination with older women. Even Lenny who has become a famous Hollywood agent, is not someone I could really connect to. He's sad because his children want to play video games more than they want to be outside, and frustrated because his wife Roxanne, played by a sexy but forgettable Salma Hayek, is more concerned about making her fashion show in Milan. Boo-freaking-hoo. I feel about as much sympathy for him as I do for Derek Jeter's contract situation right now.
(Incidentally why why WHY does Rob Schneider STILL have a career?? Saying he has no talent is like saying T.O. loves himself. It's just redundant.)
Cheap gags and slapstick humor rule the day. Jokes about Eric's wife's breast milk, playing "archery roulette" (don't ask), or peeing in the pool are some of the "funny" moments in this film. This isn't high brow comedy. It's not even low brow. In fact it's no brow.
There were a few funny moments. One involved another character referring to Chris Rock's character as a certain emaciated pro athlete. Another included Kevin James's accident with a pool. That's about it though.
Of course there is also the obligatory moment where everyone comes together and realizes how they need to keep in touch, they forgive each other for incidents that have happened in the movie, and reaffirm their friendship. I'm sorry excuse me a moment I had to clear the vomit from my throat. The scene is so cliche it's an insult to the word cliche.
Fans of Sandler's comedies will undoubtedly find this uproarious entertainment. (They must have because Grown Ups has grossed over 270 million dollars worldwide.) Unfortunately for the rest of us Grown Ups proves to be another mildly funny comedy from a actor/comedian whose laughs are offering increasingly diminishing returns.
My rating: 5/10
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