Random DVD Round-Up 2 - GROWN-UPS

GROWN-UPS is an alleged warm-hearted comedy that utterly fails to entertain on any level. 

The conceit is that four school-friends, now grown-up, come together at the funeral of their beloved school sports coach, and spend the weekend together in a vacation home. Their lives have taken them in different directions. Adam Sandler's character has turned into a big name Hollywood name, and is married to a glamorous fashion designer (Salma Hayek). Meanwhile Kevin James' character has ended up a small-time employee, much to his own shame. The movie is meant to be about how these friends rediscover their friendship and what really matters in life. It's meant to be about how our kids have become spoiled by Tivo and video games and need to just run around in the mud sometimes. All laudable aims. 

But in terms of execution, the fact that this flick was directed by Dennis Dugan (YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN, BIG DADDY, HAPPY GILMORE) and co-written with Fred Wolf (THE HOUSE BUNNY, LITTLE NICKY) tells you all you need to know about the crass humour and crude narrative arcs that the characters are sent on. I didn't invest in any of the characters, and so didn't care about their enlightenment. I didn't buy into the fashion designer ditching her Milan show - her heart melting with surprising ease. Even worse, I hated the so-called attempts at comedy. What happened to Maria Bello's career that she takes a part where her only job is to provide a "gag" about her toddler still drinking breast milk? Am I really meant to laugh at a grown man falling into mud? And what dirt do SNL has-beens David Spade and Rob Schneider have on Adam Sandler that he keep casting them in his films? 

 Still, it's far more watchable than COUPLE'S RETREAT. 

 GROWN UPS was released in summer 2010 and is available to rent and own.

JUST GO WITH IT

JUST GO WITH IT is an Adam Sandler vehicle directed by his long-standing collaborator, Dennis Dugan (HAPPY GILMORE, BIG DADDY, GROWN UPS).  It's based on a French farce, which means that you have to willingly suspend your disbelief as layer after layer of ridiculousness takes place. I don't mind a good farce, but one tolerates the nonsense plot in exchange for consistent raucous laughter. Sadly, JUST GO WITH IT  doesn't deliver. In fact, barring a few sly plastic surgery jokes, the movie is by turns dull, mawkish and plain embarrassing.

Adam Sandler plays an emotionally scarred plastic surgeon who avoids real relationships by shagging young birds while wearing a wedding ring. When he finally meets a girl he actually likes (Mrs Andy Roddic - Brooklyn Decker) he has to magic up an actual ex-wife, and persuades dowdy co-worker (Jennifer Aniston looking about as un-dowdy as, well, Jennifer Aniston) to pretend. Of course, when the girlfriend twigs that Jen has kids, she wants to meet them too - cue a massive extended family holiday in Hawaii.  The pretence gets even more complex when Aniston's character bumps into her super-successful college bete-noire (Nicole Kidman) and wants to pretend she's still married to Sandler, much to the confusion of his current girlfriend.

The problem is that a) Aniston doesn't look dowdy so her transformation into hot chick lacks punch b) Sandler's character is meant to realise that he should grow up and date a real women rather than a super-model. Except that he ends up realising the grown woman is for him because she turns out to look like a super-model - having your cake and eating it much?! c) the scene where Aniston and Sandler tell each other what they like about each other made me want to vomit d) the scene where Kidman gets on stage and tries to out-shine Aniston's character was probably the most embarrassingly unfunny thing I'll see on screen all year. 

JUST GO WITH IT is on release in the US, UK, Egypt, Israel, Singapore, the UAE, Canada, Iceland, Ireland and Mexico. It opens later in February in the Philippines, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Finland, Norway and Spain. It opens in March in Brazil, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kazakhstan, France, Belarus, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Australia, Malaysia and Peru. It opens in April in Colombia, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Belgium, Portugal, India, the Netherlands, Panama, Venezuela and Argentina. It opens on July 1st in Paraguay.