Danielle, one of my comment-thread friends, recently brought up “The Wedding Singer,” an Adam Sandler picture that I vaguely remember as being good. Sandler used to crank out funny movies almost effortlessly: “Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore” are contemporary classics, and I think “The Waterboy” and “Big Daddy” deserve to be in that discussion, too.
He has plenty of misfires, no doubt. By my reckoning (although many will disagree), these include “Punch-Drunk Love,” “Spanglish,” “Click” and “Funny People.” But those were respectable failures: I could see that Sandler and the filmmakers were trying to achieve an artistic point with them; they just didn’t quite get there.
But “Grown Ups” really feels like Sandler phoned it in, as opposed to giving it a fair try and coming up short. The set-up suggests brilliance is to follow: We see how five childhood friends — Sandler, David Spade, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider and Kevin James — have matured (or not matured) 30 years later.
I feel like if Sandler and his buddies had taken this opportunity seriously, they could’ve made the first great comedy of the ’10s and given us some real insight into what it means to grow up in an age where so many grown-ups act like children (and not in a good way). Instead, it’s a dud of straight-to-video merit that seems like it got a marketing push only because of who’s in it.
It’s not flat-out painful to watch, but “Grown Ups” does feel like one big missed chance at greatness. I laughed out loud a couple times, but that was only because my mind got stuck on the ridiculous idea of Salma Hayek being Adam Sandler’s wife.
You can imagine the character arcs “Grown Ups” should’ve had. For example, Spade’s character is the serial single guy among the group, so you might think he’ll meet someone special or learn something about relationships. You’d be wrong.
The biggest conflict in the movie is that Sandler and Hayek — a power couple — have to jet off to Italy, cutting short the weekend reunion at the lake house with the old gang. Seriously, that’s what the writers came up with. And Sandler was one of the writers, so no excuses there. The other credited writer is Fred Wolf, who has shown himself capable of generating laughs, namely with Spade’s “Black Sheep” and the underrated “Joe Dirt.”
The most successful part of “Grown Ups” is that the kids — raised on video games and texting — learn to have fun in the ways their parents did — going to the pool and even playing telephone with paper cups. But the writing is still lazy there: There’s really no moment the signals the kids’ change in attitude; it just randomly happens.
Am I holding Sandler to too high of a standard by demanding that “Grown Ups” should’ve been a classic? Maybe. But it’s more than just having high hopes for this movie. “Grown Ups” never matures as a fully thought-out concept. It came to the big screen before it was ready. Sandler, or someone calling the shots, said, “OK, what we have here is good enough.” And it’s clearly not.
(An alternate argument is that Sandler tried as hard as ever on “Grown Ups,” but he’s not as funny as he was 10 years ago. I can’t buy into that one. Funny people are funny people, just like nice people are nice people. That doesn’t change with time.)
In 2010, I think it’s important that we call out bad movies. In the late-’90s, I saw a few good movies every month, a few great movies every summer and a half-dozen great movies every year. This year — with the notable exception of “Inception” — has been jam-packed with uninspired, bad movies. I’m a bit worried that I’ll have to cancel my end-of-year top 10 list for the first time since I started making them in 1997.
I thought “Grown Ups” would be on it for sure, but it didn’t even get close.
Comments
I’ve also heard bad things about this movie. But I do like all the actors in it, so I’ll probably just check it out on Netflix and save the $10.# Posted By Danielle | 8/5/10 8:20 PM
Most of the reviews have been lukewarm. It’s a C-grade movie. I am just harder on it because I am of the Sandler generation and I know he’s capable of doing better than this, especially when it’s such a good concept. In fact, just two years ago, he gave us the very funny and underrated “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.” And last year, at least the first half of “Funny People” was decent. I just didn’t understand why he played himself as kind of a jerk in that movie. He kind of did it again in “Grown Ups,” come to think of it. I prefer nice, lovable man-child Adam as opposed to rich jerk Adam.# Posted By John Hansen | 8/5/10 9:53 PM