StyleSk8r
At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
rooprect
This movie isn't as bad as the 1-star reviews might lead you to believe, nor is it as "outrageous and hysterical" as the back of the DVD box says. Overall I'd have to grade it as Mrs. Milner graded me 4th grade: "Hasn't worked up to potential," which isn't necessarily a bad grade, but it was enough to get me a sound thrashing when I got home."Grown Ups" was a great idea on paper and even on the set. Get the funniest wisecrackers you can find, put a camera on them, and tell them to cut each other to ribbons. In the DVD bonus features, the director says this is his vacation film, because he just gets to sit back and let the (largely unscripted/improvised) story build itself.There are some good zingers, a few scenes that made me LOL, and even some subtle depth to the story (best friends harboring secret, or not-so-secret, resentment toward eath other), but something doesn't quite pull together, and here's my theory. I think the problem happened in the editing room.If you see this movie, tell me if you agree. After each zinger is uttered, there's always a quick cut to someone's reaction (laughing), in comedy terms, adding a "beat". The problem is this slows down the rapid fire humor, and make no mistake, these comedians are on their game. If you watch the outtakes, you'll see when the camera is left untouched, no cuts, their banter volleys back and forth much more naturally. But the way the film is edited, there's that dang beat which puts a stop after each punchline, almost as if awaiting audience approval before moving on.Another problem is I think some of the funny gags were cut while some of the not-so-funny gags were beat to death. Examples: in the deleted scenes, Maya Rudolph ad libs a line that had me howling "If I knew we were going to the Golden Globes I would've waxed my back door." This quippy zinger didn't make it into the film. Instead, there's a running gag that they chose to dwell on for 4 or 5 jokes, actually a disturbing bit about one of the guys having to cut his dog's vocal cords because the neighbors complained about the barking, and the guys keep returning to jokes about how weird the dog's bark sounds, a recurring gag throughout the movie. (Ok I admit the 1st joke was funny, where David Spade says "Your dog sounds like Steven Hawking"), but after that it just got upsetting. Again, this problem goes back to the editing room, as obviously someone thought the dog gag was a winner, so they pieced together as many lukewarm dog jokes they could find on the footage.The editing room is also where, inexplicably, the ENTIRE character of Norm Macdonald met his demise. Norm, who played the character "Geezer" is gone completely (except in one lightning fast scene at the Water Park, he's the guy who gets off the slide with an atomic wedgie). Also littering the editing room floor is Gary Busey and his monkey, another bit that was completely vaporized, about an off-balance Gary Busey (playing himself, big stetch haha) cellphone stalking Adam Sandler and complaining about a monkey he's forced to live with on a reality show. Again, if you watch the deleted scenes, you realize there was no shortage of funny material. It was just put together wrong. I really think that stupid extra beat killed the pacing. Contrast this against a comedy like "Airplane" or "Spinal Tap" where there's no pause after each punchline. You might even miss it because they're already onto the next gag. I would love to see a re-edit of this film with that sort of snappy, subtle pacing.
Lola A
This movie is defiantly better than Grown Ups 2. They should have never made a sequel because they only ruined it. Real-life link: It was mainly based on the idea that people should go our and live their lives outside rather than staying in and wasting time on video games or social media as most people do today. And I do agree with that, I do agree that life is more fun in the nature and surrounded by good old friends. Character analysis: We don't know enough about characters to like them or get a sense of the reasons why they do things. We don't know them in a deep level, we only know them superficially. Towards the end the movie intents to become emotional but it only becomes cringy. But as I said, the this part is way way better than the second one even though in this one an actual plot is still not seen and the movie has no adequate story line. I would not recommend this movie.
alindsay-al
I like to laugh when I watch films, especially comedies but this film is not funny at all and really hard to watch. The premise of this film sees a group of friends reunite at a lake house to mourn their old college basketball coach. One day a long time ago adam sandler was a funny actor but those days are long gone because the man just isn't that funny anymore. His humour doesn't work in this film because the writing for his character is very bland and not funny. I usually like kevin james but he just didn't have good material to work with and it meant he wasn't funny. Chris rock, rob Schneider, David spade and all the other female and kid actors don't provide anything really that memorable that make them interesting characters. The story has absolutely no depth to it, it feels like this is just a film full of slapstick and absolutely no cohesion in it. The script isn't funny I didn't laugh at all in this film because absolutely none of the comedy showed any brains to it. Also the little bit of drama added feels forced and isn't worth a thing. The style of the film is just dull, its just a bunch of skits that aren't very funny that makes this film pretty boring. Overall this is one of the worst comedies I have seen in recent memory s don't watch it.
