Grown Ups

Though it boasts as impressive a comedic cast as one can easily recall, Grown Ups, for the most part, comes off as a pervasively inconsequential piece of work that seems to exist solely because Adam Sandler wanted to spend some time with his friends. The movie follows Sandler’s Lenny Feder as he and his adolescent buddies (Kevin James’ Eric, Chris Rock’s Kurt, David Spade’s Marcus, and Rob Schneider’s Rob) reunite at a cabin in the woods following the death of their beloved coach (Blake Clark’s Buzzer), with the bulk of the narrative subsequently devoted to the central characters’ fun-loving shenanigans in the days leading up to July 4th (eg they hit a waterpark, they play basketball, etc, etc). Grown Ups‘ unabashedly freewheeling atmosphere is initially not quite as problematic as one might’ve feared, as the charisma of the various performers goes a long way towards establishing an ambiance of lightheartedness that’s impossible to resist (for a little while, anyway). And although the affable vibe does compensate for the curious lack of laughs, there inevitably reaches a point at which the viewer begins to crave something (anything) of substance in terms of plot (ie the experience of watching the film is increasingly akin to the experience of watching somebody else’s home videos). The aggressively uneventful bent of Sandler and Fred Wolf’s screenplay ensures that the movie becomes a progressively interminable experience as it unfolds, with the frustratingly overlong running time – this thing should’ve topped out at 75 minutes, max – cementing Grown Ups‘ place as an especially egregious example of a needless vanity project.

** out of ****