I would never say that I’m a huge Adam Sandler fan, but from his early work on Saturday Night Live and his debut comedy album, They’re All Gonna Laugh At You, the man can make me laugh. My first cinematic experience with Sandler, however, was neither Billy Madison nor Happy Gilmore but the Midnight Run/48 Hours rip-off, Bulletproof. I remember how hilarious that movie was and have since remained at least an interested viewer throughout his career, as hit or miss as it is. Now with Sandler literally scraping the bottom of the barrel and teaming up with almost everyone he’s costarred with before, he unleashes Grown Ups upon us, merely one week after we thought summer was saved with Toy Story 3.
There are definitely those Sandler films which still make me laugh: say, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy, Anger Management, 50 First Dates, and even Little Nicky if I’m in the right mood. However, there are also those that never have and never will amuse me: The Waterboy, Mr. Deeds, The Longest Yard, Click, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, and You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Things just keep getting lousier as his career progresses and the less said about his ultimate monstrosity, Eight Crazy Nights, the better.
To say there's a plot to Grown Ups would be a huge overstatement. There is absolutely no plot to speak of here. Simply put, 30 years after their championship-winning junior high basketball season, Sandler & Co. take a weekend together in remembrance of their now-deceased coach with their families in tow in case they have to break up the shit and piss jokes with false moments of heart. Hilarity supposedly ensues but apparently all it took to convince Columbia Pictures to bankroll his latest exercise in aloofness was a pitch that could only have gone something like this: “Hey, let’s make a reunion-type film with me and all my friends. C’mon, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider… with enough of my hilarious friends joking around and having a grand time the audience has to laugh.” Somehow they also managed to talk Maria Bello and Salma Hayek into four-year-old-breastfeeding and toilet-seat-cover-stuck-to-their-dress jokes.
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