Grown Ups

Viewer Rating:simonconnolly has rated Grown Ups rating: 1 Star

When their basketball coach passes away five old friends and teammates are reunited at the funeral and decide to spend the fourth of July weekend together. At first they don't get along too well and the kids just want to play video games. Then they start to get into the spirit of the weekend and have fun. It all sounds really boring and it is really boring. Now I know this is a little irrelevant but If Apatow's group of stars were in this instead it would be brilliant but Sandler and co. weren't funny enough to keep the film going. They really could've saved it, like when the friends are challenged to a rematch of their championship winning game about 20 minutes in. This would've been an interesting plot point to pursue, could've spawned some training montages and family bonding. Instead they play out the film then cram this rematch into the films pointless and unnecessary final twenty minutes.

I could try sit here and point blame at the direction the acting or whatever but at the end of the day Grown Ups biggest problem is that it's quite simply not funny. I really wanted to like it, but it's actually so unfunny I began to feel embarrassed for the films five main stars. The reason it is so bad is that this was clearly not a scripted film. What I mean is they seem to be trying to keep their place in the list of Hollywood's best comedy stars so they are doing what the stars of the hilarious Knocked Up did. They improvised. Now you would think that at this stage these men would be good at improvised humor and funny back and forth's but they fail miserably. All their improvised gags are brutal, either incredibly childish and stupid or just crap elaborate insults. I mean even during their coaches funeral while Sandler is making a speech they throw insults at each other from across a church, which is just tasteless.

And to make things worse they all think they are so much funnier than they really are. They are messing around and you can just tell that they think they're making this years The Hangover. But in reality none of the jokes come naturally and all are too strained and staged to muster up a laugh. The stars are trying too hard and although I am certain they had fun on set it doesn't come off in the film. I only laughed once in the entire film and that was in a brief Steve Buscemi cameo. By the end I found myself cringing at their failed jokes and poor chemistry and saying it became difficult to watch is an understatement.

In fact Grown Up's is like what I imagine watching a loved one fall into a massive hole is like. There's the initial impact, the realisation that they've fallen into this thing and they won't come out the other side at all well. And then they keep falling without hitting the bottom and all you want is for it to end but they keep going. And when they finally hit the ground you're thankful its over, and a little angry it took so long. Well I realised Sandler and co. had fallen into the hole that is Grown Up's and they would come out the other side looking poorly. And I wanted it to end but they just kept going with their crap jokes. And by the end I was glad they had finally stopped and angry that I was subjected to it for so long.

So all in all Grown Ups will be now be joining the depressingly large list of crap 2010 comedies. A complete and utter waste of about 100 minutes of my life. The cast of so called comedy heavyweights fail to provide the laughs required, and the messy story sure wasn't going to keep the film going. Kevin James the was the best of the bad bunch, and Steve Buscemi's brief cameo appearances were as I remember the only time I actually laughed in the entire film. I really wouldn't recommend this for anyone. Sure the film boasts a strong cast including Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello and Chris Rock but don't make the mistake I did. Don't think that just because you like them that this film will be good, because for me it was an outright failure.

Review published on the 23 August 2010 20:17