I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry

As complex as a garden-variety sitcom, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry suffers from precisely the same sort of problems that have been plaguing most of Adam Sandler’s recent comedies – with the overlong running time and emphasis on sentiment just two of the film’s more egregious faults. This inclusion of a few genuinely funny moments, as well as the presence of several familiar faces within the supporting cast, simply isn’t enough to disguise the stale and inherently predictable nature of the movie’s premise, which follows Sandler’s Chuck as he reluctantly agrees to “marry” Kevin James’ Larry in an effort to ensure that Larry’s kids will receive benefits if he dies. Director Dennis Dugan, working from Barry Fanaro, Alexander Payne, and Jim Taylor’s screenplay, has infused I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry with a predictable and downright familiar sensibility that ensures there are few surprises to be had over the course of the movie’s 110 minutes, with the prejudice that Chuck and Larry encounter among colleagues and friends certainly the most overt example of this. The inclusion of several eye-rollingly hackneyed elements (eg a trying-on-clothes montage set to “Girls Just Want to Have Fun”) doesn’t do the film any favors, nor does the astonishingly offensive casting of Rob Schneider as an antiquated Asian caricature (complete with buck teeth and thick glasses!) Sandler and James’ affable work is ultimately negated by the movie’s many deficiencies, with the drawn-out finale, in which Chuck denounces homophobia as “bad,” only cementing I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry‘s status as an effort that’s been artlessly geared towards the lowest common denominator.

** out of ****