Grown Ups

Adam Sandler’s production company Happy Madison has set out to follow his own established 90s formula of comedy, mixing in physical scenarios, gross out humor, and witty one liners that used to work when it didn’t get so tiresomely repetitive. It’s safe to say that after Little Nicky and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan everything Sandler was doing with comedy got pretty familiar. Digressing from his low standard and doing more difficult roles, such as his fine performances in Punch Drunk Love and Funny People, it seemed Sandler was on his way to growing up and moving beyond the immature and tiresome humor that made him famous. However, it appears that Grown Ups, as though the title of Sandler’s new film was intended to be ironic, is a voyage back in time attempting to rekindle those years of adolescent dirty humor with only a few successful deliveries. When the film’s main attraction is five aging comedians trying to top each other with witty comebacks in relation to each other’s looks then the film already is doomed as it falls back on cheap gags, physical stunts, and gross out moments that just resembles not only every comedy Sandler has done, but also every comedy that comes in the theaters every three months. More of the same is not what we need when it comes to comedy, but the movie going public will certainly see to it that this sort of self-indulgent film will earn a decent amount of money. Perhaps this is too harsh considering that there are minor moments of laughter, but in the end most of Grown Ups falls flat or the material is stretched too often leaving you rather unsatisfied when considering the potential all of the main characters can deliver (that is, excluding the horrid work of Rob Schneider).
            The story of Grown Ups, which is essentially a study of five characters in their time and place years later after an apparently defining basketball game in their life, is quite underwhelming. After their coach dies, a man they all cared for a great deal yet never visited, the five boys make their way back to the old stomping grounds where they experience each other’s families and find out more about each other’s lives. The leader of the estranged group, Larry (Adam Sandler), is a movie agent that can’t even brush the realism and eccentricity that Jeremy Piven possesses in “Entourage,” who is married to a beautiful fashion designer (Salma Hayek) and has two very spoiled sons and an unbelievably sweet daughter. Then there is Eric (Kevin James) basically throwing his weight around (literally) who also has two dysfunctional kids and a beautiful wife (Maria Bello) set on still breast feeding her son at the age of 48 months (that’s four for those not counting). Kurt (Chris Rock) is a walking paradox exuding feminine qualities while also having the Chris Rock bravado to use against his undermining pregnant wife (Maya Rudolph) and judgmental mother-in-law. The player and unhitched man of the group, Marcus (David Spade), is appropriately inappropriate as he gives all the children poor advice and gets drunk a bit too often. Then there’s the black sheep of the group, Rob (Rob Schneider), who is married to a much older woman and practices some form of vegan, hippy healing secularism. All of the five characters are merely just a representation of the actor’s familiar personalities and in the end doesn’t engage you as much as a film with actual defined characters would have been able to do. This fact, along with the lazy writing and delivery of most of the film’s jokes, ultimately make Grown Ups a below average comedy and an even worse film.
            Again and again it sees every Hollywood produced comedy is initially concocted around the idea of who they can cast in the roles, rather than what makes a good and original comedy. Of course, each of these Saturday Night Live alumni, and a “King of Queens” star, possess personality and it works for a good deal of the beginning of Grown Ups. However, once the film starts progressing there is a realization that the jokes are simply lazy, falling back on easy laughs instead of flourishing out well intentioned and designed delivery. Instead these five known comedians just stick with what they know best and that is to be who they are to our familiar consciousness. While this will satisfy a good majority of the movie going populace the unfortunate reality is it just demonstrates how limited comedy has become for enjoyment’s sake. Comedy has devolved into the mere basics of sensory entertainment. There are no more Marx Brothers, Three Stooges, Laurels or Hardy’s, Woody Allen’s, or even Zucker brothers. There is just no more eloquence, brilliance, or wit within any of today’s modern comedies, which instead fall back on physical stunts or gross out gags if the script isn’t flowing well enough to satisfy even the most remote inkling of thought provoking comedy. Grown Ups provides for simple entertainment and nothing more. This will make people laugh today but will never be referenced for tomorrow.
            What modern comedies also lack is precise character introduction and development, and why Grown Ups lacks this here is due to their chosen cast. We are given the superficial introductions to each character as they utilize dialogue instead of action to put out their beliefs, perspectives, and points of view. This is just lazy script writing and extremely wasted filmmaking when you fall back on the characters telling you what’s going on rather than getting us involved. What is also uninvolving in Grown Ups is the complete lack of tension between the characters on the screen. One of the first things you learn in script writing is conflict, yet there simply isn’t any here. And if you’re one of those who doesn’t expect conflict in their comedies just turn to Blazing Saddles, which has a conflict right at the heart of its intended comedy: a black sheriff during post-civil war western frontier America. Once the introduction to any sort of tension begins on the screen it is quickly resolved within the same scene making the whole experience rather bland. There will probably be enough scenes that will make you smile, if not outright laugh, but really Grown Ups is just a waste of talent, time, and, quite simply, money.
            Happy Madison productions at one point was tapped right into the cultural conscious of comedy, delivering decent low brow films that had enough charm to get you through. However, those times (which were the 90s) have passed and its time for a new wave of comedic thinking, which Grown Ups only offers more of the same. If the same is what you’re looking for then certainly Adam Sandler’s new film will mildly entertain you with gross moments, over the top but expected physical stunts, and repetitive insult gags. There just simply isn’t enough character grounding or clever script writing to make Grown Ups a memorable, let alone consistently entertaining, comedy. Sure it’s fun to be immature occasionally but there can be an intelligent way of doing it, i.e. Airplane, Young Frankenstein, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Let’s expect more of our comedies and perhaps studio execs won’t be looking to attach names to a script without making sure the script actually possesses quality writing.

Grown Ups stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider.  There's a big cast here (including the characters' wives and children) but not a great story.  Sandler co-wrote the film and obviously saw this as a great way to do something on screen with his old Saturday Night Live buddies plus his newer buddy Kevin James.  The plot is pretty simple.  The 5 guys were old classmates and friends who led their school's basketball team to a championship way back in the day.  Now grown ups, they discover that their coach has passed away.  So they decide to attend the funeral (which is where they grew up) and also make it a vacation for themselves sharing the same cabin.
It's kind of the typical vacation movie where hijinks ensue, some funny and some not.  A lot of the grown ups here still act like at kids at times, and that's not a bad thing.  We certainly want to see these guys having fun; otherwise it would be a pretty boring movie.  But the film doesn't really go anywhere.  The guys they beat in the big basketball game when they were younger all still live in that same town, and they want a re-match even though they're much older and totally out of shape.  So the big climax of the film is just a basketball game where Sandler is the only one who appears to have any skill.  It would have been better maybe if the opposing team were funny characters too, but they're really not.
There are some funny scenes throughout the movie of just the guys spending time together and catching up.  But there weren't many big laughs - mostly just stuff to chuckle at - as opposed to a recent film like Get Him to the Greek which had audiences rolling with laughter.  Also, the talented cast of wives which includes Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, and Maya Rudolph aren't really given much to do.  That might have been expected, but what I was really surprised at was how little Chris Rock is given to do here.  He is probably the funniest of the bunch and he's just kind of a generic character here who has no stand-out scenes in the film.  Each guy is still appealing in his own way except for Schneider who actually plays the least fun character of them all, the one who has tried too hard to grow up.  But they do exude a good chemistry together since they are all friends in real life.  It's still not enough though to make up for a so-so movie.

http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-philadelphia/danny-porcaro

Adam Sandler movies were the highlight of my preteen existence. Every year another Happy Madison production would roll out with awesome slapstick gags and Sandler making a fool out of himself. But there was always a great lesson in each one, classics like The Waterboy, Big Daddy, and Happy Gilmore. Then one day Sandler decided to star in Funny People which although being hilarious, left me with suicidal tendencies.

Anyways, I usually enjoy these movies because its a nice brainless getaway to the movies. Especially when you throw in Kevin James, David Spade, Rob Schneider, and Chris Rock (Not really the last one). I was all sorts of pumped for this one. Sadly,Grown Ups doesn't fall into a Sandler classic.

Grown Ups is the story of five men who grew up together playing basketball, becoming the only championship team for their beloved coach. Which is pretty cool except for the fact that they were only in like 5th grade, which shouldn't be all that hard to repeat. Anyways, their coach dies and they all gather in some nameless New England town for his funeral and rent out a gorgeous house on the side of a lake. The men reminisce, discover how odd each others families are, and try to grow up a little bit.

Well, Chris Rock is never funny. My opinion, but I've never truly found him funny, mostly because he always has the same stupid face on all the time, and even so, the role he is given is awful. Completely forgettable, he sat in the background most of the time. His wife (Maya Rudolph, who is hilarious) acts as the man in his house, while Rock does all the cleaning, cooking, and B$#!ing which amounts to about 7 seconds of amusing banter and an entire movies worth of regret. Rob Schneider's role is equally as terrible for him. He plays the oddball of the group. He's married to a 70 year old woman and is just a newagey kind of guy. The rest of the men spend the whole time making fun of him, and eventually you just feel bad for him. I always enjoy Adam Sandler, Kevin James, and David Spade so I don't have much to gripe about them.

The slapstick in this comedy is pretty funny, i.e. Kevin James falling of a rope swing, Steve Buscemi hitting a wooden wall at fifty miles an hour, the guys playing arrow roullette. The jokes are equally as funny, and many of them seem to be improvised. The problem that got on my nerves was how the jokes were treated. One guy would tell a joke and the rest would laugh and compliment him on how funny it was (heh heh that was a good one!). They are funny jokes, but I don't need the rest of the cast to run in and tell me how funny it was, trust me, I can do it.

Throw that on about 2 hours of movie, plus a 18 minute long scene where everyone explains how they lied to each other and gets through the problems in their marriage (and make fun of Rob Schneider) and you have one tired audience.

The cast is tremendous and does about as well as it can, but nothing can save this movie from itself. It's good to see the guys all back together, but I wish it was in something a little more memorable.

1 and a half out of 4 stars

-Christopher O'Connell

My girlfriend and I were invited (along with over 300 people) to see a screening of this movie and overall it was "Very Good". Good solid chemistry. The jokes kept rolling. One or two sections were flat and a few too many fart-jokes. But the chemistry was awesome as were the ribbing the main characters gave each other throughout the movie. Rob Schneider was called an "Elvis Oompah Loompah" as well as a "Midget Phillipino Fonzie". Out of everyone there who was asked to stay, around 30 of us, about 85% of the people thought it was at least a "Very Good" movie. Not until our opinions and feedback made did we realize the director was behind us the whole time. I personally have him my 2 cents of feedback and we'll see what happens.

Its not as good as "The Hangover" but definitely better than "Step Brothers". I give it a grade of a B+.

Vincent Snavely