Opening Day: 26 August 2010

Synopsis:

"Grown Ups", starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade, is a comedy about five friends and former teammates who reunite years later to honor the passing of their childhood basketball coach. With their wives (Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph) and kids in tow, they spend the Fourth of July holiday weekend together at the lake house where they celebrated their championship years earlier. Picking up where they left off, they discover why growing older doesn't mean growing up.

Movie Review:

There were two main attractions that lured this reviewer to watch Grown Ups. The first being the possibility of looking into a crystal ball – to get an idea how he and his buddies might look like many years down the road from now when we have all had children. The second would be that any Adam Sandler movie is a guaranteed hit. The verdict? Let’s say that both attractions turned out to be major duds.

The movie introduces us to the five friends as little league basketball players. The motley crew is led by Adam Sandler and consists of Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider. Together with their coach, the team successfully clinches the 1978 championship. Fast forward thirty years later, they boys have all moved on with their lives but their coach brings them together one more time when they all return to their hometown for his funeral. In doing so, they also plan to have a great big family outing at a lake house to celebrate Fourth of July.

In truth, the prospect of these comedians getting together should be like Stallone assembling his Expendables team but the team up works for a bit and then it crashes tremendously. The really funny jokes were a rarity, the mediocre ones were scattered throughout while the fall flat on their faces ones, plentiful. While the comedic team ups would have worked at a smaller scale (ie. Sandler and James in Chuck and Larry), in here there is not much believability that these people actually spent a good chunk of their lives together and this is further extended to the different relationships too. Salma Hayek in a comedy is something but she and Sandler are just not funny together. Even the reliable Maya Rudolph of Saturday Night Live fame cannot keep things together opposite Chris Rock.

Somehow, it felt that the script was trashed out in double quick time with a paint-by-numbers guide, with no effort whatsoever to be different. As a matter of fact, it seems that the actors themselves could have used this opportunity to have a bit of a break themselves. The one highlight though would have to be how disconnected children these days are from the real world. With the over-reliance on technology and staying inside, there are those who are clueless when placed on an open patch of sprawling green. The children’s discovery of the best things in life serves up as the only memorable piece to this movie.

This movie ranks up there with You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, the other Adam Sandler movie in recent times that has been so bad. It is also no surprise then that audiences in the States did not warm up as comfortably to this movie. Wait for the DVD or for it to appear on cable.

Movie Rating:



(There isn’t much 'Grown-Up' charm for a movie called Grown Ups)

Review by Mohamad Shaifulbahri