Before and after he was a Hollywood heavyweight, Adam Sandler has populated his movies with his friends. With Grown Ups, the actor/writer/producer may be taking this “Six Degrees of Adam Sandler” to the extreme. The movie is peppered with people he’s worked with in all stages of his career. This is either a Sandler Vanity Project or a tender reunion of friends, depending on how you look at it. And how you look at it may depend on how much you like these friends.
Grown Ups is about a group of childhood buddies who played youth basketball together, reuniting for the funeral of their coach and then spending the weekend together at his old cabin. The whole “six degrees” jumps out at you when you see the stars and remember their old “youth basketball camp” was Saturday Night Live. Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider all began there at roughly the same time. They bonded as they watched veterans like Phil Hartman and Dana Carvey do their things – forcing them to act together and write sketches for each other. (Obviously absent is their fifth friend, the late Chris Farley. Interestingly, their fifth friend here is Paul Blart’s Kevin James. They must have felt they need a fifth and he had to be a bit chunky). Since their SNL days, they’ve all been in each other’s movies – go nuts on imdb.com and you’ll see what I mean.
You just know that behind the scenes, they had to kick back and reminisce about their hungrier and raunchier days.
Onscreen – they kick back and reminisce about their hungrier and raunchier days.
And that’s it really. That’s your movie. Five friends take their families on vacation and enjoy each other’s company. There’s no real plot to it, they pretty much just hang out. Oh, there are little family subplots to resolve, but none are more complicated than an old Brady Bunch episode. It covers things like: Sandler’s kids are spoiled and don’t appreciate the outdoors; or Rock’s wife doesn’t appreciate his cooking. Granted, there were no stories about kids still breast-feeding at four years-old on the Brady Bunch, but otherwise, this is family stuff.
And even the breast feeding storyline ends up being sweet, mellow stuff. Yes, sweet, mellow stuff from Happy Gilmore, Joe Dirt, Paul Blart Mall Cop, Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo, and the guy who did the world’s most famous stand-up routine about the “N word.” It may be a disappointment for their fans to see them all in “Dad mode,” but that’s not to say it isn’t funny. Mostly, it’s funny watching the five friends interact. They do nothing but trash talk each other in a comfortable way only close friends can. In real life, it has to be how they perceive one another.
So how you relate to the movie may depend on how you relate to its stars and how far back you go with them. This reviewer goes back with Sandler, and can appreciate that the cast also includes people he worked with in Airheads and MTV’s Remote Control (and talk about a Vanity Project: Sandler cast Salma Hayek as his wife!). This reviewer is about the same age and appreciates the soundtrack chock full of songs listened to by suburban white kids (J. Geils! Triumph! Eddie Money!).
Everyone else – hopefully you can relate and kick back and enjoy yourselves. If you don’t spend your 4thof July weekend at a reunion yourself, this can substitute. Just be warned: the title “Grown Ups” really isn’t meant sarcastically.
Grown Ups (2010)
Genre: Comedy
Release Date: 6/25/2010 (Showtimes and Tickets)
Studio: Sony Pictures
CAST & CREW:
Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Maya Rudolph, Colin Quinn, Norm MacDonald
Directed By: Dennis Dugan
Written By: Fred Wolf
Produced By: Adam Sandler, Jack Giarraputo