Grown Ups

I didn't choose to watch this movie. My youngest son (13) saw it on Netflix and picked it. I'd heard about this movie. I was curious if it would be as terrible as the reviews over the years have said. You see reviews as bad as this has gotten and you think it HAD to be hyperbole. It can't actually be this bad. Nope, it's that bad. It really is that bad. But I feel the need to address why it is as bad as it is. Because I think some of the criticisms levied against it are misguided. Grown Ups isn't bad because it has no plot. Yes, the total lack of a plot in Grown Ups is terrible -- scenes feel like a patchwork quilt made out of oily rags and towels covered in bodily fluids, aimlessly meandering from scene to scene in a desperate but fruitless search for anything resembling a story on which everything else can hang. My anti-favorite is the "climax", where four couples all gather on the same patio and take turns airing their recent grievances, and then making up seconds later. I love the picture of Adam Sandler and Salma Hayek arguing while everybody else patiently waits their turn. It's so moronic and unbelievable. But in and of itself, a lack of a cohesive plot isn't a detriment. Wayne's World is largely a series of sketches with only the thinnest plot that the movie constantly mocks, and yet it is heralded as a classic comedy. Grown Ups isn't bad because it is mean-spirited. Yes, at least 60% of this movie is the main group testing out the least clever roast jokes you've ever heard. Did you know Kevin James is fat? Or David Spade is short? Rob Schneider's character has attractive daughters! Chris Rock lives with his mother and she's loud! IT'S SO FUNNY, YOU GUYS. But this also isn't a problem in and of itself. Hot Tub Time Machine is full of friends ball-busting. But they feel like actual friends, and there's often actual story reasons for the jokes. Same thing with Tommy Boy; David Spade and Chris Farley spend a fair amount of time ribbing each other, but there's a beating heart behind it. These aren't schtick for the sake of schtick. Grown Ups isn't bad because it is a thinly veiled excuse for Adam Sandler and his buddies to go on vacation and get to do it. Yes, it is that, but you know what other movie is and is beloved? Ocean's Eleven. Grown Ups isn't bad because of its preposterous casting and paper-thin characters. Yes, it is insulting to believe Kevin James landed Maria Bello or Sandler and Hayek being together. But an odd pairing can work if there is time and investment in the characters. Ghostbusters somehow makes Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver make sense, and some might argue that spends a fair amount of time making them incompatible. No, what makes Grown Ups so wretched, so painful to endure, is the astonishing lack of effort put into every facet of it. Say what you will about the humor or quality of movies like Billy Madison or Happy Gilmore, but there isn't a moment in there where the cast and the script aren't TRYING. Grown Ups has the energy of a reminder email from human resources to fill out your time card. Jokes aren't so much delivered as they are dropped from a plane without a parachute. Every attempt at acting (which are few and far between) feels like someone is off-screen yelling reminders of contractual obligations. I'd say everyone is going through the motions, but that would imply Grown Ups is familiar with the concept of forward momentum, and if you endure this movie's editing and pacing, you'll know it is, in fact, not familiar whatsoever. There is no element to this movie, not a single one, wherein I can recall anything other than the most perfunctory effort being given, and that is the CEILING. Often, it feels like they're trying to explore the possibilities of what exists below the bare minimum. I did not watch this movie, I endured it, the way one endures a cousin's practice sales pitch for their new MLM business. I have seen many unfunny comedies in my life, but I can still look back on them and see they're trying. Movie 43 can be so unfunny and ugly it might qualify as a war crime, but it is always trying to do something. I struggle to think of a movie that is billed as a comedy but makes almost no attempt to actually be one in the way Grown Ups does. This movie is more bereft of life than your local cemetery, which is appropriate, since it deserves to be buried in a deep, dark grave.