Reviews

Take a bucketful of Saturday Night Live alumni, add director Bill Dugan who has a long list of comedies, and throw in a script that allows its cast to show their stuff, and you have a recipe for laughter. That's what Grown Ups delivers, and I don't know a better way this hot summer to chill out at the movies.

...

Thanks to some very good directing, I liked the central characters in the film, each able to offer their brand of comedy without being stepped on. To me it looked like director Dennis Dugan just gave Sandler, James, Spade, Rock and Schneider the basic lines for each scene and then let the group go at it, ad libbing throughout. Although Dugan does get a little out of control at times, especially during the water park scenes, his ability to keep that many crazy comics on track is a great feat.

The humor in the Grown Ups is wide-range. It's physical, situation comedy, scripted, ad lib, slap stick, tongue-in-cheek -- all the improvisation techniques used to make Saturday Night Live a huge success. Thrown in the mix, you'll even see a stand-up comedy routine by David Spade and some dark comedy by Rob Schneider. It's all in fun, and the cast does their best to please in spite of a plot that doesn't have much of a story.

By John Delia

Grown Ups is one of those movies where you show up and maybe laugh a few times and squirm a few times, and then it's over. In a few days, you'll have no recollection of it. That's because the storyline is so bland, and the characters such broad caricatures, it manages to be totally unmemorable. For a film about 30-year-old friendships, that's a fatal flaw.

...

The comedy follows a rather loose structure, with dozens of mini plot points that are introduced and resolved with a few jokes thrown in. The kids learn how to survive without cell-phones. A daughter nurses a bird back to health. The men ogle at Schneider's attractive daughters. (Wait, is that a plot point?) As for the men themselves, their characters rarely extend beyond their three-word summaries. Schneider's a cougar-lover. Sandler is wealthy but worried about his spoiled kids, who text the nanny for their every need. James is pretending to be better off than he is. Spade hasn't grown up yet. In the most inspired casting of the bunch, Rock plays against type. As a househusband, he recites lines about cleaning, cooking and affection usually given to women, but without emasculating himself.

By Sarah Sluis