Secondhand Reviews:"Grown Ups"

Rated PG-13 for some crude humor, strong language and sexual references.

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I really do think that Adam Sandler has genuine talent. Seriously. I didn't think so for a long, long time, but after seeing his genuine acting capabilities in more ambitious movies like "Punch-Drunk Love" and "Reign Over Me", I couldn't deny it. And it's nots jut dramas, either... I really enjoyed his silly comedy "The Wedding Singer" and I even thought that "You Don't Mess With The Zoahn" had its moments. But it does seem sometimes that every time Sandler steps out of his comfort zone and does something that doesn't involve one or more immature adults who are finally faced with the need to grow up and face adult responsibilities, he gets panicked and has to go back and do another one before he can advance to something better again. Plus, he does seem to have been unable to keep giving work to his much less talented "Saturday Night Live" veterans like Rob Schneider and David Spade. And now we have a movie that combines, more or less, both of those aspects of his career, though I wish there had been more of the ambitious Sandler.

"In "Grown Ups", Sandler and a group of his SNL and other cohorts (Kevin james, Chris Rock, David Spade & Rob Schneider) play former schoolmates whose lives were shaped and influenced by their former basketball coach (seen in flashbacks), whose death & funeral mark the occasion for them to re-unite for the first time in many years and spend a few days together with their wives & children, and ask questions about where they've come in their lives and whether they need to rethink some things about how they've been living. Yes, folks, it's "The Big Chill" without the Motown songs and with Sandler behind the wheel. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here? Well, not quite, though it gets very frustrating at times.

I don't think I've seen a worse bunch of reviews for any movie this year than for "Grown Ups", with more viscious things said about it. You know, of course, how too much praise and hype can make it impossible to enjoy a movie as much as you might have otherwise? I don't think any movie could possibly have lived down to the anti-hype that I've read about "Grown Ups", and as a result, as much as I didn't care for a lot of things about the movie, I still actually found myself laughing a surprising amount of the time. Sandler, who co-wrote the script, actually plays his character as the most mature one of the group (granted, that's not saying much) and I had no trouble buying him as both a Hollywood big-time power player and a husband and family man. And although he falls prey to the old convention in ensemble movies of giving each of the main characters one and only one main identifying trait, he's still able to work in some funny bits (coming so soon after "Machete Don't Text" in Machete, I was amused by a number of gags about excess texting).

Of course, there are also a lot of talented but wasted players: Kevin James and Chris Rock aren't given nearly enough to do, and what Rock is given is mostly downright embarassing (he's been a house-husband for several years and takes considerable abuse from his mother-in-law about occupying a role usually assigned to women). The women, too, have a hard time of it: with highly talented actresses like Maria Bello, Salma Hayek and Maya Rudolph, the wives are pretty much assigned to the usual "shrill, they-don't-understand-us-harpies" until late in the film when the boys try to replay a team they faced in a basketball game from their youth, at which point the wives suddenly become literal cheerleaders complete with costumes (it's enough to make you cringe). And the less said about the treatment given to Schneider's two traditionally beautiful (and one "non") daughters, the better.

So what could I possibly have found to like about this one? And why am I saying that it didn't live down to the negative anti-hype? Well, in spite of it all there were still a bunch of scenes that made me join right in with the audience laughter. Even some of the less talented members of the cast were given a scene or two that were so inherently funny that they didn't need to give really great performances to get laughs (I'm thinking in particular of the scene in which Rob Schneider, whose character is known for his over-serious dramatic gestures, goes completely overboard while singing an operatic-sounding version of "Ave Maria" at the coach's funeral. If a movie can make me laugh at ANYTHING Schneider does, that's quite an accomplishment). And the great Steve Buscemi takes a moment off from Coen Brothers movies to play one of the members of the team of former foes challenging Sandler and company to a rematch. The happless guy winds up injured, banged up, in a cast... and even in a cast allowing him almost no actual movement still is funny.

I definitely don't want to risk overselling this movie. It's a long, long way from a classic and there were, as I say, a lot of things about it that keep it from getting close to the winner's circle. But I still can't say I had a BAD time at a movie that I got as many laughs from as I did from this one. On the now-defunct TV series "At The Movies" Michael Phillips & A. O. Scott used to have three categories for films: "See It", "Rent It" or "Skip It". I personally would never rent a movie...for me, it's either see it in a theatre or skip it. But for those who aren't dinosaurs like me, and who don't insist that every comedy be as great as the Marx Brothers of Monty Python... and who have a fondness for some of the more talented members of the cast... I think I could comfortably say "rent it" for "Grown Ups".