4/30/2023 0 Comments Grown ups 2 rob schneider![]() When he sees the third daughter, though, he just calls her “fugly” to her face. There’s even a scene where an employee of a water park just flat-out says he couldn’t be their father because they’re hot. The movie constantly makes fun of the fact that Rob is short and two of his daughters look like models. The same goes for anyone older than the main cast, or anyone who looks different. Anyone who is even remotely overweight is constantly mocked and ridiculed for no other reason than they happen to not be skinny. If you liked that, then you’re going to love the rest of Grown Ups. Remember when they introduced Eric as an adult in the movie? He’s so fat, he broke the swimming pool. The only reason this happens is to make us think he learned a lesson. He’s not someone who defines himself by the basketball game he won as a kid, so blowing the game has zero effect on his character. Having Lenny lose the game intentionally to give the other team a win for once is genuinely sweet, but it only creates the illusion of an arc in his character. However, plot formulas demand a final confrontation in the third act, so we’re reminded that these people want a rematch - and they get that rematch. In that case, age and the passage of time is the antagonist. Honestly, the more interesting story is one about grown men learning to appreciate their families and embrace getting older. This could have been the plot, but instead, it goes back to the idea that this movie is simply going through the motions. Turns out, those kids are poor and stupid now and still really bitter about what happened. Later, they return to their hometown and occasionally bump into the kids they defeated that day, led by Dickie Bailey, played by Colin Quinn. Grown Ups begins with a children’s basketball game that our protagonists win. Related: The Funniest Adam Sandler Movies, Ranked This film does that, but it fails to do the work of setting most of these conflicts up. Why do we have this sudden conflict? Well, most conventional screenwriting advice will tell you that you have to pull characters apart before bringing them back together for the finale. Yes, that’s a selfish thing to do, but it’s not like he manipulated her into staying to fit in with his plans. The same goes for the revelation that Lenny (Adam Sandler) canceled his family’s plane tickets to Milan before his wife Roxanne (Salma Hayek) decided they could stay at the cabin a few days longer. We could barely remember that Eric (Kevin James) drove a fancy car and said he was part owner of a furniture store, but he tells everyone he was lying as if it was a plot thread sewn through the entire narrative. ![]() Everyone literally stands in a circle and confesses something about themselves the audience does not care about. For instance, the character arcs come out of nowhere in the third act. It’s as though someone skimmed through a few articles on how to structure a movie, plugged in scenes that fit a vague formula, and called it a day. ![]() One of the major problems with Grown Ups is that its plot is entirely paint-by-numbers. So, the answer to the question “Is the Adam Sandler movie really as bad as everyone said in 2010” is yes. Instead, we get a mess of a comedy with no clear goal other than to make another Adam Sandler comedy. Judd Apatow could have turned it into a raunchy but heartfelt comedy about the good old days and learning to appreciate what we have. Had you given such a concept to someone like Richard Linklater, and we might have gotten a thoughtful and funny reflection about aging. ![]() The story of a group of friends who return to their hometown following the death of their beloved basketball coach is a ripe premise with a lot of possibilities, many of them quite good. If audiences liked it so much and Sandler even made a sequel, surely there’s more to it than critics initially thought back in the day. Therefore, one would think that there is something different about this movie. Released in 2010, the film got roasted by critics, but obviously made enough money to justify a sequel, and both movies are shown on cable ad nauseam. One of the few exceptions to this is Grown Ups. While he has made a ton of movies over the years, he doesn’t typically revisit any for sequels. The Adam Sandler movie machine is its own brand, and it has been going strong since the mid-90s. ![]()
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