Will lightning strike a third time for Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler? After all, the two found box office success with their previous collaborations—50 First Dates and The Wedding Singer.
Well, now the costars have reteamed for Blended, which hits theaters today.
Barrymore and Sandler play Lauren and Jim, two people who have a disastrous first date and vow to never see each other again. That is, until they realize they mistakenly swapped credit cards and meet once again to exchange them.
Unbeknownst to the other, both Lauren and Jim wind up booking family trips to Africa and meet, yet again, while staying at the same resort.
While in Africa, the two are forced to tolerate each other while their families enjoy the vacation and wind up getting involved in various hijinks.
So, what do some critics think of Blended? Read on...
• "Blended suffers from a fundamental lack of trust in its audience, following every unexpectedly smart exchange with a numbskull pratfall or one-liner, and every instance of genuine sincerity with an avalanche of schmaltz," writes Andrew Barker of Variety. "The harder the film tries to wring out a laugh, the more awkwardly it whiffs."
• "Sandler would piss out of the screen if he thought he could get a laugh. This is not his worst film, but it's his most offensive," states Vulture's David Edelstein.
• "Most of Blended has the look and pacing of a three-camera sitcom filmed by a bunch of eighth graders and conceived by their less bright classmates," notes A.O. Scott of the New York Times. "Shots don't match. Jokes misfire. Gags that are visible from a mile away fail to deliver."
• "A decent movie might actually be buried here somewhere deep, deep down. The world will never know," says Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com. "Essentially, though, this is yet another example of Sandler using the excuse of making a movie to go on a lavish vacation with his friends."
• "The familiar Sandler-Barrymore chemistry lends a bit of sparkle to this otherwise predictable family rom-com," shares Newsday's Rafer Guzman.
• "Each sweet moment is inevitably punctuated by some in-your-face joke that's at least as stupid as the preceding moments were heartfelt," opines Stephanie Merry of the Washington Post.