Steven Brill
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Sandler seems to be trying to hide under it, with tight and defensive posture perhaps inspired by "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" or Marty Feldman in "Young Frankenstein."
On the first day of high school, buddies Ryan (Troy Gentile, “Nacho Libre”) and Wade (newcomer Nate Hartley) and new sidekick Emmit (David Dorfman, “The Ring”) become targeted by senior bully Filkins (Alex Frost, “Elephant”) who makes their life such a battlefield they think their only hope for peace is their own professional bodyguard.
That first day of school also includes an epic embarrassment at the hands of two bullies: Filkins (Alex Frost of Elephant) and his lapdog Ronnie (Josh Peck of The Wackness).
Superbad (2007) offered us three über-dork high-school seniors desperate to fit in and get laid, and here we have essentially the same three kids as freshmen desperate only not to be killed by the school bully (Alex Frost, Elephant).
If inadvertently wearing matching shirts isn't enough to draw a target on the boys' foreheads, Wade's meek attempt at rescuing the pint-sized Emmit ("The Ring's" David Dorfman) from hallway locker entombment draws the attention of the crazed Filkins (Alex Frost, who made his debut as one of the picked-on kids who turn to violence in Gus Van Sant's Columbine- inspired drama, “Elephant” ).
Nobody attending the film's McKinley High 2 ever texts each other or boasts of how many MySpace friends they have or goes to a class with computers on the desks, and the cheeky casting of Elephant 's Alex Frost notwithstanding, this is a movie about bullying that evidently takes place in some alternate universe where Columbine didn't happen, since none of the adult characters treat the threat of school violence seriously.
Owen Wilson plays a homeless Army vet who accepts a job as a bodyguard for three exceedingly nerdy high school freshmen (the well-cast Nate Hartley, Troy Gentile and David Dorfman) against the most sadistic, psychopathic bully ever filmed (Alex Frost, who played the killer in Gus Van Sant's Elephant ).
This is a version of that Michael Douglas–on-a-rampage thriller, Falling Down, except Banks just keeps popping back up.
This is similar to the premise of "Little Nicky," an Adam Sandler abomination released in 2000, with Harvey Keitel as Satan, a role here taken by Peter Stormare.
Only the Satanic scions in "Little Nicky" seemed to get it right -- instead of destroying our world, they indulged themselves in its most appealing offerings, namely vodka and pizza.
With the exception of the terrible “Little Nicky,” Adam Sandler movies have always had charm, to varying degrees.
"Grown Ups" has fewer laughs than "The Benchwarmers," "Little Nicky" or "Lost & Found."
On the grand scale of Adam Sandler movies -- and oh, how grand that scale is! -- Grown Ups registers as a middle-of-the-pack comedy, not the instant classic of a Happy Gilmore or The Wedding Singer but not the heinous affront of Little Nicky.
Adam Sandler’s worst film since the one-two punch of Little Nicky and the inexplicably popular Big Daddy a decade ago, Grown Ups marks the umpteenth collaboration between the comedian and director Dennis Dugan.
In fact, if recent film history were a high school cafeteria, “The DUFF” would probably be sharing a table with such wannabes as “Revenge of the Nerds,” “Drillbit Taylor,” and Adam Sandler.
Zac Efron fails to impress with his first major headlining roleMatthew Perry (2004's " The Whole Ten Yards ") plays the older version of Mike with more depth and less screen timewhile game supporting performances from Leslie Mann (2008's " Drillbit Taylor "), Michelle Trachtenberg (2006's " Black Christmas ") and Thomas Lennon (2009's " I Love You, Man ") are wasted on a tone-deaf, half-written script that does them no favors.
I would have informed one of the two local publicity reps that I was leaving but it appeared that they took off once the movie began, no doubt to drink deeply and lustily from the chalice that is Life in ways that didn’t involve sitting through an Adam Sandler movie so shabby that it makes “Little Nicky” look like fricking “Zodiac” by comparison.
Same with Billy Madison and "Billy Madison" or Nicky and "Little Nicky."
In the latter category, there's "Little Nicky," "Grown Ups" and now "Jack and Jill," a lowbrow drag comedy in which Sandler plays both Jack, a successful, attractive L.A. advertising director, and Jack's identical twin sister, Jill, an overweight, abrasive harpy with a room-temperature I.Q.