Dirty Grandpa

This movie is a whole series of "but" comparative statements. This movie made me laugh more times than I expected to (and probably more times than I care to admit) ... but it also relies on the lowest hanging fruit of humor. It's shock humor, partially for how profane it is, and because of who is saying it. Robert DeNiro and Zack Efron have fun chemistry. Efron, despite my best efforts, is very likeable in just about everything I've seen him in, and Robert DeNiro is Robert DeNiro, and both play their characters well ... but nobody in the else is given ANYTHING. Zoey Deutsch is a love interest, and she's as idealized (a prize to be won) as she is paper thin. Aubrey Plaza's character is just vulgar and horny. Julianne Hough plays an uptight, controlling fiancé. They're sketches of characters for Efron and DeNiro to bounce off of, not actual characters with depth. The movie is directed with a good sense of energy and decent pacing ... but it is also too long for a movie like this. A comedy like Ghostbusters has a lot of plot, so 100+ minutes is fine. Dirty Grandpa should be 85-90, tops. The movie properly escalates the wild, outlandish situations, always looking to outdo itself ... but it also is rigidly slavish to a formula. Because the characters are who they are, you know how each one will end, and how the whole movie will unfold. The movie at least has the decency to make Efron's character uptight and dull because he feels compelled to follow in his father's footsteps ... but the movie also wants a bitch character to drive Efron to the cute hippie free-spirit chick, so Hough's character is so abrasive and so unappealing, it's impossible to understand what he saw in her in the first place, and why the movie felt the need to have her be as she is. I don't believe in guilty pleasures. I like what I like, and if you think less of me for it, that's your problem, not mine. But this movie is as close as it gets to a guilty pleasure. It's not a good movie. It's the kind of gross-out humor I grew out of decades ago, and it's written with all the depth of a teaspoon. But I still had some fun with it. Key word, "some".