Blended

For the laugh, let’s divide Adam Sandler movies into three categories. There’s Saucy Sandler (Jack & Jill, That’s My Boy, Grown Ups, etc), Sweet Sandler (The Wedding Singer, Bedtime Stories, Spanglish etc) and Serious Sandler (Punch Drunk Love, Reign Over Me, Funny People). While I wish he would do more of the latter and none of the former, Blended falls into the sometimes-decent second category. It is, however, not decent.

Sandler plays a lonely widower and father to three girls, with whom he struggles to communicate since his wife died. He’s trying to get back into the dating game but messes up, like taking separated mother of two Drew Barrymore to Hooters on a date. Naturally they don’t hit it off but when both secure a free trip to Africa for their kids (don’t ask) and are forced to share the same romantic suite (really - don’t ask), Sandler and Barrymore do their best to convince themselves, and their offspring, they’re not attracted to each other…

So Sandler goes on holidays again and we all have to pay for it. However, unlike Just Go With It and the Grown Ups movies, there is at least some work put in to warrant the trip abroad. An unusual amount of time in a long opening first act is given to not only setting up the vacation snafu (Okay, you asked - Barrymore’s pal Wendy McLendon-Covey, the current go-to for the acerbic best friend, and her new beau break up and tickets are going a-begging) but also to the Sandler/Barrymore problems and their children’s inability to move on after mum’s passing/dad leaving. There’s some effort going on here.

Well, effort for a Sandler movie anyway, which sees the former funny man labour to chase some of the chemistry he and Barrymore enjoyed in The Wedding Singer. There’s also a reach for some of Happy Gilmore’s magic with ‘psycho’ golfer Kevin Nealon turning up to reprise the "feelin’ it… feelin’ it" guru thing. The comedy heaves and sweats, forever forcing this notion of ‘blended families’ - a very American idea where two separate families ‘blend’ together after respective divorces - to justify its existence. No sale.

Sweetness aside, this is nonsense - the dialogue is bad, and scenes run on and on, sitting there begging for either canned laughter or a sharper edit. It’s not as offensively bad as we know Sandler can be, but it’s not good either.