Grown Ups [PG]

Just because you grow older doesn’t mean that you have to grow up! When a group of childhood friends reunite at their coach’s funeral, they take a holiday weekend to remember the good old days. Bringing their wives and kids along for the ride, everyone’s about to get a taste of what it means to be a “normal kid.” 

A new release, we only got it in today, it’s got recognisable names in it, I figured it’d be a bit of fun that wouldn’t require much concentration. I was right and it was exactly that. 

Childhood friends, now important businessmen and husbands, are reunited at their basketball coach’s funeral and decide to take a weekend holiday to remember and re-enact the good old days. Who says you’re only young once? Bringing their kids and wives along for the ride, the boys teach everyone what it means to be a “normal kid”. 

Starring Adam Sandler, Ron Schneider, David Spade, Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, Kevin James, and Steve Buscemi, Grown Ups was a mediocre comedy that admittedly had its moments. 

Much of the humour is in the form of sexual references and slapstick comedy, but the film does bring an important point to the surface about today’s youth. Adam Sandler’s kids in the film are depictions of modern youth, always playing with their technology: texting, playing violent video games, and not doing any physical activities for recreation. I do think, though, that this was the only valid and entertaining part of the film. 

Although there was humour and I did laugh a couple of times, the film ultimately was jagged, filled with abrupt stories and twists of the plot, and sometimes held no point at all. It’s an alright film for those who just want to stare at the screen and not think about anything at all. 

All the guys seemed to work well together, their reactions to everything was very believable, but I have no desires to add this film to my collection. 

On the whole, I really don’t know what I was thinking when I hired this film. It was a pretty average comedy that ultimately did not have a moral or a strong point that it was trying to convey to the audience. Everything seemed kind of carelessly thrown together. No urges to watch it again for a while.