GROWN UPS

Here’s the thing about Grown Ups: it’s a silly, juvenile comedy aimed squarely at 14 year old boys... and never really pretends to be anything else.

Adam Sandler stars as Lenny, a high-powered Hollywood agent, who reunites with a group of his childhood best friends after the death of their beloved, one-time basketball coach. The guys are: Eric (Kevin James), a lawn-furniture salesman with a sweet-but-kind-trashy wife (Maria Bello); Marcus (David Spade), an alcoholic womanizer; Kurt (Chris Rock), a stay-at-home dad routinely belittled by his professional wife (Maya Rudolph); and Rob (Rob Schneider), a New Age-y vegan with a wife (Joyce Van Patten) nearly twice his age. Also along for the ride down memory lane is Lenny’s icy, fashion-designer wife (Salma Hayek Pinault), who’s less than thrilled when she discovers the entire rowdy group – and all the requisite offspring! – will be sharing a lakeside cabin for the 4th of July weekend.

What unfolds is a series of vignettes, as the now-approaching-middle-age friends try to recapture their youth through assorted activities like a trip to a water park or a rousing game of “arrow roulette.” Along the way, there are breast jokes, ass jokes, fart jokes, pee jokes and a surprising amount of distracting giggling on the part of Sandler. Often, he seems less like a cast member in his own movie, and more like a visitor to the set, perpetually amused by the antics of his friends and co-stars.

And, of those co-stars, Rock is the weakest link, proving once again that he’s funny as a stand-up but wooden as an actor. His Kurt is stiff and boring, and Rock seems awkwardly out of place with little to do. (Perhaps the filmmakers should have tapped Tim Meadows, who appears in a cameo, for that part despite the fact that Rock is a bigger name.) Spade gets most of the film’s laughs, courtesy of great comic timing, some sharp one-liners and a few winning asides, with James’ trademark physical humor coming in a close second. And Schneider, sporting a wigged-out pompadour and a healthy libido, manages to sell the beaten-almost-beyond-recognition ongoing joke about his character’s ravenous sexual desire for his 70something wife.

Unfortunately, while the boys have their fun, the women of Grown Ups get majorly short shrifted in terms of character and purpose. There isn’t a sane, normal one among them... save, I suppose, for Lenny’s sweet young daughter (Alexys Nycole Sanchez), who’s maybe five or six years old. The rest of the female characters are either unlikable, unbelievable or relegated to “token sexpot” status, which is disappointing. I understand that the target demographic for this movie probably isn’t clamoring for better roles for women in film or more balanced representations of women’s lives, so it’s not terribly surprising. But still.

And, really, as mentioned, Grown Ups doesn’t claim to be anything but childish. It’s unapologetic lowest-common-denominator cinema and, for all its flaws and simplicity, it’ll probably still make you laugh despite yourself.