Grown Ups (2010)
Directed by Dennis Dugan
After their high school basketball coach passes away, five good friends and former teammates reunite for a Fourth of July holiday weekend.
29 connections found
View:
29 films that influenced Grown Ups
What critics say influenced Grown Ups
This is their The Big Chill.
Co-written by Sandler with Fred Wolf (“Joe Dirt”), “Grown Ups” is a cliched variation on “The Big Chill” with a quintent of friends from childhood reuniting after the death of the coach who long ago guided them to a basketball championship.
Whether it’s the drama of “That Championship Season” or the sardonic humor of “The Big Chill,” this is a pretty sturdy plot.
If you’ve ever wondered what “The Big Chill’’ would be like with old “Saturday Night Live’’ castmates — well, why would you ever have done that?
Imagine if " The Big Chill " were made today.
Reminiscent of "The Big Chill" and "The Great Outdoors," only less wise than the former, less clever than the latter, and more juvenile than both combined, the picture goes about its laid-back way without working up a sweat.
Despite being a retread of the old John Candy formula ( The Great Outdoors and Summer Rental come to mind), Grown Ups does have its moments, mostly thanks to the cast's undeniable chemistry.
Despite being a retread of the old John Candy formula ( The Great Outdoors and Summer Rental come to mind), Grown Ups does have its moments, mostly thanks to the cast's undeniable chemistry.
Stealing one or two broad strokes, but none of the substance, from Jason Miller's "That Championship Season," "Grown Ups" has no plot at all.
Advertisement
Critics, myself included, continue to gush nostalgically about Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love--just like we did with Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy.
And as interminable his work was in Blue Streak, Lawrence actually fares even worse here - as his character's motor-mouth tendencies are exacerbated by an ugly emphasis on racist jokes and asides.
I'll take a little bit of the blame for Grown Ups, as someone who was juvenile enough at the time to not just laugh uproariously at Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, but take Rob Schneider and David Spade seriously as comedic actors and revere that era of SNL.
Sandler returns to the brand of comedy that made him a powerhouse on the big screen in the late '90s/early 2000s, and while Grown Ups doesn't live up to Waterboy, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer or even Billy Madison, it generates enough laughs to entertain kids looking for an alternative to animated family fare.
Over a decade and a half, the emotionally-broken man-child of Dugan’s “Happy Gilmore” has tried to turn his unhinged impulses into something redeeming.
He may be 43 and a father, but Sandler remains entrenched in the ribald humor that made him a star in the late '90s with such films as Happy Gilmore , Billy Madison and The Waterboy.
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.
There's also a flatulent big grandma with an infected toe, spoiled kids, a couple of hot babes to ogle and some shots to the crotch to be dispensed, all under the uninspired direction of Dennis Dugan ("You Don't Mess with the Zohan," "The Benchwarmers").
Adam Sandler (2009's " Funny People "), Kevin James (2009's " Paul Blart: Mall Cop "), Chris Rock (2010's " Death at a Funeral "), David Spade (2006's " The Benchwarmers "), and Rob Schneider (2005's " Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo ") share an easy-going chemistry, and no wonder; they're all real-life friends.
"Grown Ups" has fewer laughs than "The Benchwarmers," "Little Nicky" or "Lost & Found."
A laid-back sensibility proves key to this very retro story, as Sandler and director Dennis Dugan (“You Don’t Mess With the Zohan”) advocate their belief that just about every familial issue can be solved around the picnic table, checker board and riverbank.
And the result is a disappointment even for the auteur of “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.”
There's also a flatulent big grandma with an infected toe, spoiled kids, a couple of hot babes to ogle and some shots to the crotch to be dispensed, all under the uninspired direction of Dennis Dugan ("You Don't Mess with the Zohan," "The Benchwarmers").
Directed by Dennis Dugan (2008's " You Don't Mess with the Zohan "), "Grown Ups" is overflowing with characters.
The result was the let downs of “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” and “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan”.
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.
Written by Sandler and Fred Wolf, who cut his teeth at "Saturday Night Live" in the '90s, and directed by frequent Sandler partner in crime Dennis Dugan ("I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry" most recently), the film is clearly a case of a comic on a nostalgia binge, pining for a simpler place and time.
The man partly responsible for two shameless social farces “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry’’ and “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan’’ is being lazy even by the standards of “Big Daddy.’’
Dugan�s part in this is not surprising, since his previous credits include the horrific You Don�t Mess With the Zohan and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, both of which starred Sandler, and the latter included James.
Directed by Dennis Dugan (I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry), with a script credited to Sandler and longtime SNL head writer Fred Wolf, Grown Ups lazily makes its way from Point A to Point B, establishing the individual characters on their home turf, then amassing them for a memorial service and the weekend wake in an inspirational rustic setting.
But most of his fans don’t see those movies, so he’s forced to go back to Dugan, the director of “Big Daddy,” “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan,” “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry,” and more crimes against cinema.
This is not the ambitious Sandler of Punch-Drunk Love or Funny People; it's the go-for-the-easy-joke Sandler of (ugh) Big Daddy and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Enter the relatively socially conscious Sandler movies, beginning with Dugan’s “Big Daddy”.
The man partly responsible for two shameless social farces “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry’’ and “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan’’ is being lazy even by the standards of “Big Daddy.’’
The buzz: Everyone knows what to expect from a movie co-written by Sandler and directed by Dennis Dugan (“Big Daddy”): many jokes about farting and fat people and a juvenile depiction of women that makes Judd Apatow movies look enlightened.
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.
And Di Quon (2006's " Pulse ") is a comic standout as the put-upon Rita.
Advertisement
Adam Sandler (2009's " Funny People "), Kevin James (2009's " Paul Blart: Mall Cop "), Chris Rock (2010's " Death at a Funeral "), David Spade (2006's " The Benchwarmers "), and Rob Schneider (2005's " Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo ") share an easy-going chemistry, and no wonder; they're all real-life friends.
Watching Grown Ups made me long for movies of my childhood that actually did show groups of friends with undying bonds—Now and Then or The Sandlot.