Monday, August 19, 2013

Grown Ups 2 Review

Grown Ups 2 (2013) Review

Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris, Rock, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Taylor Lautner











WARNING: This review contains mild spoilers to Grown Ups 2. This would matter if I was recommending this film, but I’m obviously not so if you for some reason really want to see this film, skip this review. If not, enjoy what happens when I get REALLY angry.

This review could just be me writing the sentence “this movie fricking sucks” over and over again and it would still sum up this movie PERFECTLY! America, actually anyone who paid to see this movie, American or not, I hate you for making this a bigger hit than Pacific Rim. I watched this through the use of…. other things (don’t judge me I can’t get to the theaters at the moment and Youtube had this up for weeks) so I’m not part of the problem, but apparently a lot of people are, since it’s made over a hundred and seventy-two million dollars worldwide as of writing this. Goddammit. Guess what people: WE ARE ONLY SPURRING HIM ON! Like I would get it if this was high quality stuff, but no IT’S GODDAMN GROWN UPS 2! ....Sorry I’m just really pissed off right now. All I have to say is thank you Adam Sandler for making my little quote in my Incredible Burt Wonderstone review correct.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I said in my review of that film that I have no hope in PG-13 comedies. I just don’t. This movie makes my non-existent shred of hope for that genre disappear. This movie not only makes me hate comedies but the film industry and the movie viewing audience in general. There are a lot of great, original scripts that should be produced, but since we go to terrible sequels and remakes, they don’t get made. Hollywood believes that we want more of this schlock because we pay to see them instead of original films and so because we pay for stuff like this, they make even more stuff like this. The circle of movie pre-production ladies and gents. And so because most people paid to see this, making it number 2 at the box office on its opening weekend, we are going to keep getting terrible films like this. I just hate it, I HATE IT! And since this blog exists, I can now vent my anger with you. ENJOY!

So what’s the plot you ask? Well there barely is one. It’s pretty much a collection of rejected SNL skits that just weren’t bad enough or dumb enough for Movie 43. It follows Sandler’s Lenny, James’ Eric, Rock’s Kurt, and Spade’s Higgins on their kids (yes even Spade’s illegitimate supposedly 13 year old child) last day of school and their “hilarious” antics that involve a schizophrenic bus driver, Shaq pretending to be a cop, a giant group of idiotic frat boys lead by Jacob from Twilight, and so much more useless junk before a big impromptu 80’s theme party that pretty much brings every single character in the film and then some into one “hilarious” situation. Just writing that lame synopsis made my fingers burn.

Writing does not get lazier than this. Really none of these plots matter! At all! There’s an itty bitty subplot where Kurt, who works at a cable company apparently, waits until 4 so that he doesn’t have to install cable at his mother-in-laws house. What was the point of this? Absolutely nothing! No wait, there was! It was so that we could see her going to the door with her pants down because she is coming from the bathroom! Isn’t that funny? Ha ha ha, yeah if you didn’t think I was being sarcastic, then I really need to work at being obvious! The jokes in this film are lowest common denominator to the max. We get jokes about, but not limited to, burping, sneezing, and farting in rapid succession, a man trying to fix an ice cream machine filled with chocolate soft serve looking likes he is taking a crap, a deer urinating on both Adam Sandler and his masturbating son, a masculine woman probably having a penis, a pervy janitor making woman at a gym stretch in provocative ways, a young child having the IQ of a peanut, grown men jumping off a cliff naked while a college party is going on, a man dressed as Boy George making out with who he thinks is another man but is really a dog, and a while man dressed as and impersonating Flavor Flav. Gbuefboefbybb UGH! PEOPLE FIND THIS FUNNY?!!!!? EVERYONE ON SET THOUGHT THIS WAS FUNNY??!!! YOU HAVE TO BE…..again I’m sorry. My rage is overtaking me and I haven’t even gotten to the cast! Oh the cast…oh the cast….

I’ll admit this: when it comes to big, dumb action films like Michael Bay films I kind of get why big names like Mark Wahlberg sign on. They make big bucks at the box office and raise their statuses as marquee movie stars that can bring in large grosses. When it comes to Adam Sandler/Happy Madison films though, to me it TARNISHES the reputations of those involved. For example, Anna Faris, a kind of funny woman in my opinion, has been stuck in terrible rom coms like What’s Your Number? since she starred in The House Bunny. And Dana Carvey, who was great on SNL, hardly has a career now because of The Master of Disguise. That’s just my opinion, I’m probably wrong but really WHY ARE HALF THESE PEOPLE SIGNED ONTO THIS FILM?! Just excluding Sandler, James, Rock, Spade, and Lautner, this cast includes Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph, Nick Swardson, Jon Lovitz, Cheri Oteri, Tim Meadows, David Henrie, Patrick Swarzenegger, Steve Buscemi, Shaquille O’Neil, Steve “Stone Cold” Austin, China Anne McClain, Ally Michalka, Alexander Ludwig from The Hunger Games, most of the male cast members  from the past 10 years of SNL (minus Bill Hader, thank god, and possibly Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis, I forget), and that’s only the ones I can remember! Most of those names are either part of Sandler’s “crew” or D-Listers that aren’t getting much work, so whatever, I get it, they need the jobs, but I expect so much better from Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, Alexander Ludwig, Steve Buscemi and the SNL guys. Seriously, how much did they get paid? Tell me, I need to know how much these people got that sold them on this lousy script.

Now for the characters or there for the lack of actual characters. Out of all of Sandler’s films this one feels the most like his buddies just doing stupid stuff on camera while they laugh and count their paychecks. The “problems” that these characters face are barely issues. Lenny has Adam Sandler problems: he’s a big-shot former (I think it wasn’t really explained that well what he did now) Hollywood person (again don’t remember) and his hot wife wants another kid, that SURPRISE is going to happen no matter what he thinks. Kevin James….has mommy issues? I don’t know, he adds nothing, but at least the fat jokes aren’t happening every 5 seconds in this one. Chris Rock’s wife forgot their wedding anniversary…which is barely mentioned after one scene. David Spade’s son is spending time with him for the summer and he is scary as hell. Ok I’ll admit I laughed a little bit at David Spade, something you’ll only ever hear me say when I watch The Emperor’s New Groove, and his son. The fact that his son is almost a foot taller than him and looks like Thor if he grew up in the bad part of town was kind of funny. Other than that I laughed at no one else. No one else left an impression on me so I can just continue with this review. Actually wait, one more thing. I just really need to ask this: why on earth is Nick Swardson getting shoved down our throats so much lately? I haven’t seen his stand-up yet but judging by the atrocious performances he gave in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, Just Go With It, Bucky Larson and this film, he is not even good enough at Sandler standards.  He is like the 2 Chainz of comedies: he is terrible and yet he keeps showing up. Just please GO AWAY!

Is there any saving grace here? Well, I laughed at a few jokes. I liked David Spade’s subplot and I laughed when while doing his driving test, Rock’s son is believed to be driving under the influence and Steve Buscemi, his driving instructor, takes off only 5 points, something I would never usually laugh at but since I was stressed about getting my license at the time, that kind of made me chuckle. That’s it! Ugh, these jokes are just horrible, so horrible that I need to make another paragraph about it. Someone filmed clips of this film while at their theater and everyone was laughing their asses off at the dumbest things. Everyone was laughing throughout the party scene and when Spade is ruining town by rolling around in a tire and even when Taran Killiam, aka the hot one from the current SNL cast, was licking soap off of a car window in the car wash scene. Do you see why I hate movie goers now? The writing here…well I don’t think there’s a script for this film. I am now convinced that this was just a little vacation for Sandler and his friends where they could dick around and make bad jokes. The little subplots and jokes here and there that do work are shot down at point blank faster than the Roadrunner. Cheri Oteri’s little subplot about her being in love with Sandler was funny for a second, like I giggled when she said that she dated him in grade 6, but then they ruin it and make it so stupid. Honestly, they had some jokes with great set-ups, like Rock’s anniversary disaster and Oteri’s obsessive crush, but they either get forgotten or ruined immediately and that’s the biggest problem with this film: what they pass off as “comedy” is dumb and when there is a shred of good material, they dumb it down so that the masses will understand it. Dammit this just makes me mad…..however I’m not going to scream since, well, I have something to say.

Adam Sandler: I used to like you. I think that The Wedding Singer is brilliant and you can actually kind of do dramatic work, which is pretty rare for a comedian. BUT it is stuff like this that makes me forget that you have talent. What you and your brand are doing is wasting film by making crap like this that you’re going to keep making since people see it. Nothing pains me more than when someone who I know has talent lowers themselves because more people will see it. You know how many people would love to see a comedy on the level of The Wedding Singer or Billy Madison again? Or how many people loved Hotel Transylvania because it was both funny and heartwarming? Or that people are catching on since That’s My Boy did fail at the box office? Films like these are just hurting your fans and hurting your reputation. I don’t know if I can stand anymore of this because really all this is is a giant sell-out for everyone involved that is going to make its budget back no matter what and you know what, IT IS ANNOYING. Nothing would make me happier than to see a good Happy Madison flick that is funny and heartwarming without coming off as obnoxious or aimed towards the type of people who love Honey Boo Boo. I know most of these people can do so much better and hopefully they get more work or have better material to work with. For now, I have to call it as it is and say that this is one of the worst films I have ever seen. It’s not the worst one, Mirror Mirror and The Green Hornet are so much worse, but it is terrible. All I have to say now is this: Adam Sandler, please come back. Please.

~Indie Princess



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