Review: Grown Ups Just Needs to Grow Up, Already

Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider and David Spade go through the unfunny motions in this puerile pic

By Matt Stevens Jun 25, 2010 3:00 AMTags
David Spade, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock, Kevin James, Adam Sandler, Grown UpsSony Pictures

Review in a Hurry: Oh grow up already! In this lazy, lame-o comedy, five best buds reunite some 30 years after their middle-school basket ball championship and reminisce about those glory days. With its undeveloped premise and juvenile humor, Grown Ups remains emotionally and comedically stunted.

The Bigger Picture: Adam Sandler has gathered his comedy posse—Kevin James, Rob Schneider, Chris Rock and David Spade—to hang out at a lake house and shoot a movie. Fun for them, but not so much for the audience, who pays to watch what's essentially their summer-vacay video.

In the Big Chill-y setup, Sandler and company star as longtime friends who meet up at the funeral of their former basketball coach. After the service, they and their annoying families (bratty kids and gassy mom in tow) plan to spend the Fourth of July weekend together.

All overgrown adolescents, the guys are broadly drawn as different types: Lenny (Sandler) is the supersuccessful Hollywood agent; Kevin (James) is the klutzy fatty who pees a lot; Rob (Schneider) is the New Age vegan who loves much-older women; Kurt (Rock) is the whipped househubby; and Marcus (Spade) is the single, skeevy, boozy horndog. Ick.

Inexplicably, Lenny and Kevin have model-gorgeous wives—Salma Hayek and Maria Bello, respectively. (If a running gag about Bello breastfeeding their 4-year-old son strikes you as hilarious, this is the puerile pic for you.)

Instead of a sharp, funny portrait of male bonding and mid-life crises (see City Slickers), the movie dumbly stumbles through pointless sequences of the buds eating, drinking, boating, playing ball, going to a water park, etc. All the while, they trade moronic barbs, with much of their banter seemingly ad-libbed.

Made by Sandler's Happy Madison Productions, Grown Ups offers up the expected fart jokes, fat jokes, old jokes, fugly jokes and phony sentimentality in the final reel. What is surprising is the appalling amount of product placement throughout: KFC! Coke! Snickers! Reese's Pieces!

Grown Ups just keeps feeding us junk...until we get the throw-ups.

The 180—a Second Opinion: Sassier and classier than anyone else onscreen, hottie Hayek rocks a bikini and every scene she's in.