Grown Ups Review: The New and Improved Adam Sandler

Grown Ups is the second Adam Sandler movie I’ve reviewed for Poptimal, and I think I’m noticing a trend.  The first, in case you’re wondering, was Funny People and the change in Sandler’s choice of script could prove smart and lucrative.

The premise behind Grown Ups is simple: five childhood friends who have grown up, grown apart, and moved away are brought back together by the death of their old basketball coach, Coach Buzzer.  Adam Sandler is a big-shot Hollywood agent, complete with the beautiful wife (Salma Hayek), nanny, and three spoiled rotten kids who don’t know how to exist without video games and gelato. Kevin James plays an overweight, typical mid-western husband with two kids and a wife (Maria Bello)who still breastfeeds their four-year-old son. Chris Rock is a house husband to a high powered working wife (Maya Rudolph), content to while away his days caring for their two children, trying out recipes from the cooking channels and sparring with his nasty mother-in-law. David Spade tackles the same role he always does – the womanizing, drinking bachelor with no desire to pay life by the rules. Rob Schneider is also handed a somewhat typical part, and spends his days tackling holistic medicine with his significantly older lady-friend (Joyce Van Patten).

Together, they were the only championship basketball team Coach Buzzer ever had, and after their funeral the group heads out to the lake house they used in their childhood and the families start to get to know one another, come to grips with the mistakes they’ve made with their own families, and say goodbye to Coach Buzzer once and for all.

Now, this is an Adam Sandler movie, after all. There are plenty of gross and idiotic moments, shots of Chris Rock’s mother-in-laws bunions, the inappropriate breast-feeding, Kevin James crashing into a tree on a rope swing, Rob Schneider’s ridiculously hot daughters, and pretty much every scene including Rob Schneider’s geriatric lover. There are also, however, so many genuinely believable moments, especially the scenes in which the old friends spend time alone together.

The dialogue is superb and authentic; never feeling forced or like it’s fabricated to force more jokes. As with Funny People, Adam Sandler seems to have a knack for the real, for what people feel and talk when there aren’t cameras and scripts and directors. It’s almost like we all could have been there with them, listening to our boyfriends or husbands having a conversation with their childhood friends.

There are charming moments as the men work in their role as fathers, showing their children how to have fun without televisions, video games, and nannies – watching the wives and children form their own relationships is just as smooth as the men’s friendships.

There are some laughs, but the culminating scenes are more than a little bit cheesy. I won’t spoil anything, but there’s a scene on the dock when all the couples have little heart-to-hearts, followed by the granny/girlfriend making a ridiculous statement that no one would say aloud in real life. Also, the team of boys they beat in the basketball championship as children challenge them to a re-match during the Fourth of July picnic, and more “lesson” type moments emerge.

Overall, I found the film enjoyable in many ways but over the top in the life lesson department. It proves, as I have long suspected, that Adam Sandler has a heart. He has messages he wants to share with us through his projects, and sometimes he hits the nail on the head. Other times, he’s trying too hard to shove the moral in our faces instead of trusting that we’re smart enough to figure it out on our own. I think he’ll get there. If he keeps making movies like Funny People and Grown Ups, a whole new audience of people will grow to love him.

I would recommend the film, but you could get just as much out enjoyment watching it on video and saving your ten theater bucks for something bigger and more exciting.

Photos by Tracy Bennett – © 2010 Columbia TriStar Marketing Group, Inc.