Susan Granger’s review of “Grown Ups” (Columbia Pictures)
Most of Adam Sandler’s movies are synonymous with summer silliness. This time, five childhood friends reunite in New England over a Fourth of July weekend for the funeral of their junior high school basketball coach and get acquainted with each others’ families at an idyllic lakeside cabin.
These are the 40-somethings whose team won a 1978 championship. Lenny Feder (Sandler) is a successful Hollywood agent married to fashionista Roxanne (Salma Hayek) and they have a trio of tech-addicted children. New Age vegan Rob Hilliard (Rob Schneider), who sings “Ave Maria” a cappella at the funeral, is sexually obsessed with his earthy ‘older’ wife, Gloria (Joyce Van Patten). (“This must be your mom?” “She’s my wife!”) Househusband Kurt McKenzie (Chris Rock) is dominated by his pregnant wife, Deanne (Maya Rudolph), and totes along their two other offspring. Chunky Eric Lamonsoff (Kevin James) brings along his wife, Sally (Maria Bello), who is still happily nursing their “48-month-old” son, never acknowledging that he’s actually four years-old. And Marcus (David Spade) is the perennial horny bachelor who parades his bare butt.
Unsurprisingly written by Sandler and Fred Wolf and directed with improvisational self-satisfaction by Sandler’s recurrent collaborator David Dugan (who struck far more funny bones with “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan”), it doles out heavy doses of bodily-function man-child humor, like simultaneous urination in a water-park pool, squirting breast milk, and a frequently flatulent grandmother. Basically, the stale, often-humiliating slapstick and mean-spirited, cookie-cutter pratfalls are depressingly pathetic.
Sandler obviously not only enjoys being surrounded by his former “Saturday Night Live” cronies – David Spade, Chris Rock and Rob Schneider – with Kevin James filling in for the late Chris Farley – but also feels secure with this dumb, unscripted drivel. It’s too bad he’s neither mature enough nor brave enough to branch out a bit more, accept more challenges, perhaps because last year’s far-better venture, “Funny People,” wasn’t the hit he’d expected.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Grown Ups” is a rowdy, raunchy 4. Time marches on, along with these celebrations of mediocrity.
