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Grown Ups

Buzz says:   MPAA Rating: PG-13
Current Showtimes: No showtimes available

The cast is made up of Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, and Steve Buscemi. Naturally, we expect nothing short of great things. Unfortunately however, as much as we’d like it to, Grown Ups doesn’t quite live up to the fullest potential of its comedy vets ensemble.

Five long-time friends and former teammates reunite after the death of their childhood basketball coach in this summer comedy, and, along with their wives and children, decide to spend their Fourth of July weekend at the lake house where they celebrated their championship victory as kids. Despite the very different paths each of them have chosen as adults, the guys pick up exactly where they left off, hilarity ensues, and together they ultimately come to realize that growing old doesn’t necessarily mean growing up.

While a simple and predictable plot can at times be salvaged by a decent script, the writing efforts of both Sandler and Fred Wolf only further bloat this film with clichés and overused gags. Even the physical comedy leaves a slightly bitter taste in our mouths, allowing itself to become riddled with landing in poop, peeing in pools, and squirting breast milk over everyone and everything, as odd as it sounds. Add that to the film’s foreseeable, yet unnecessary, sentimental finale, and not much is left for our cast to work with. And Dennis Dugan’s directing doesn’t really do much to improve the film either, which is a huge shame because Dugan’s 2007 collaboration with Sandler and James, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, left me in physical pain as a result of laughter, despite the poor reviews that film also received.

And yet despite my disappointment at the lack of sincere originality, I didn’t actually hate this movie. I’ll admit it had a decently sized handful of laugh-out-loud moments, and just watching the cast interact together was enough to satisfy me; they genuinely looked like they had fun making this film. But while I loved this cast, I did feel that on some level, it felt slightly crowded. Along with our five lead pals, we have four wives, ten kids, a nanny, and an incredibly stereotypical mother-in-law. That number definitely muffles the potential for the wit and humor we know Sandler, James, Rock, Spade and Schneider are capable of producing, and we definitely get the sense that some of them are being highly underused. But then again, you may only think that if you’re taking this film more seriously than it needs to be taken. To put it simply, Grown Ups is the perfect summer comedy: it’s a casual, fun, and goofy 100+ minutes of entertainment that you don’t have to think too much about, neither during nor after.