You’d think that a film written by Adam Sandler, and starring him and four other well-known and successful comic actors would be hilarious. In the case of “Grown Ups”, the comedy fails.
Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider play five friends who all played together of a championship basketball team when they were kids. Now, thirty years later, they learn that their former coach has passed away.
So the five reunite at the funeral and, with their families, then spend a weekend together at the old camp where they use to hang out. And they then spend most of the movie cracking jokes about each other and acting crazy.
There’s a lot of adult humor and adult references in “Grown Ups”. Even though there are a lot of kids in the movie and they’re in a lot of scenes, this is NOT for kids. But the problem is, since most of the jokes aren’t funny and most of the gags don’t work, it’s not really a movie for adults, either. There’s a ton of slapstick, with characters falling down, getting hurt and , of course, what would a bad Hollywood comedy be without at least one character getting hit in his private parts.
It seems like many of the scenes were ad-libbed, with the five actors simply throwing out lines and hoping they work. Most times they don’t. Others in the cast include Salma Hayek Pinut, Maria Bello and Steve Buscemi. They should all forget about this one quickly.
The concept isn’t bad – but the scripts is very weak and very predictable, especially the big basketball game at the end. Once again this is a case of the trailer being funnier than the film.
“Grown Ups” is rated PG-13. Again, it’s inappropriate for kids and not good enough for adults.
On The Official Kid Critic Report Card, “Grown Ups”” gets a D+, only for a couple a pretty funny scenes, and one of them involves James, right at the start of the film, so be warned: it’s pretty much all downhill from there.
Rock’s “Death at a Funeral” – very fully. I also really enjoyed James and “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”. Even Sandler’s “Bedtime Stories” was better than this. Maybe these friends just shouldn’t work together.