Movie Review: Grown Ups

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It was another tough decision at the theater this week, Adam Sandler or Tom Cruise. I thought heavily of checking out the art cinema but timing didn't work out. So I choose Adam Sandler in Grown Ups and was pleasantly surprised. It wasn't a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, it had it's problems but it was better than I thought. BUT before I could get to the comedy gold (tongue planted firmly in cheek) of Sandler, I had to get through the previews. I'm really starting to loathe them. First there were five shown before the movie. I can deal with that, not a big deal. Two of the movies are "coming in 3D and in 2D at select theaters." Argh! That's starting to get annoying! Then there was this trailer, I won't plug the movie, but it stars Will Farrell. Why must I be tortured with Will Farrell? It was more of a Talladega Nights:

The Ballad of Ricky Bobby than Stranger than Fiction type of movie. By the looks of the preview, I think that he'll be up for a Razzie.

Will Farrell aside, Grown Ups was your standard Adam Sandler movie with some of the language and potty humor. Rob Schnieder showed up in this movie as usual but instead of the cameo type appearances he was one of the leads in this film along with Chris Rock, Kevin James and David Spade who play five life long friends. They've gathered back in New England after 30 years to attend the funeral of their beloved basketball coach, Coach Buzzer (Blake Clark) who lead the team to a championship when the boys were 12. As a reward they had a party at a gorgeous lake front house.

As the town gathers at the church for Coach's funeral the five are reunited Lenny, Rob, Eric, Marcus and Rob (Sandler, Schneider, James, Spade and Rock) along with their families. As they see each other the insults and one upmanships start flowing. Even during the service they take bets as to what one of the guys would do. It's like the five of them never separated and continued their friendship right where they left off many years ago. Lenny, a successful Hollywood agent, decides to rent the lake front property and have all the families, all 17 people: wives, children, pets, nannies and mother-in-laws stay under one roof for the Fourth of July weekend.

Each family has their own issues. Lenny has his successful clothes designer wife Roxanne (Selma Hayek Pinault) who needs to get to Milan for a fashion show and two very spoiled children. Eric has unique family issues with his wife Sally (Maria Bello) who can't seem to break their four year old son from breast feeding. Kurt is a stay at home dad with a successful bread winning pregnant wife (Maya Rudolph). Rob is a new age type of guy on his fourth marriage with kids from previous marriages and a new, rather unconventional wife. Pulling up the rear is Marcus, the single guy on the prowl for anything that moves, kinda like the same character he played on Rules of Engagement.

There are some funny scenes, there are some gross out scenes, there are some things that should NEVER be tried at home. They apparently tried, like the Wadsworth poem "I shot an arrow into the air, it fell to earth, I know not where." and make a game out of it. Kids, if you see this movie don't EVER try what they do with a bow and arrow. Something really BAD could happen. Actually, I shouldn't limit that just to kids....adults, this applies to you too! The movie has a PG-13 rating due to crude material including suggestive references, language and some male rear nudity, you know typical stuff for a Sandler movie.

Some of the editing was choppy. With some great comedic people together I'm sure they did some improvisation that the director Dennis Dugan (Don't mess with the Zohan and The Benchwarmers) had to try to stitch together in the editing bay. Some of the incidents and conclusions were just too contrived and easily resolved, but ultimately the story was about friendship and family and that part of the movie was enjoyable in the 102 minute running time.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: Death at a Funeral

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Funerals are a funny animal, especially when it's a family funeral. Living in Hawaii I haven't attended a family funeral in a number of years. The last time I attended a family function was my brother's wedding and someone made the comment, "it only seems the time this family gets together is for weddings and funerals." In the movie Death at a Funeral, two brothers Aaron and Ryan (Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence) make a similar comment saying that they only have reunions at funerals, in this case, it's their father's.

Aaron and his wife Michelle (Regina Hall) want to move out of his parents home into their own place. Aaron is supposed to give the eulogy since he's older but everyone was thinking that his published author brother would give it. Even when Ryan arrives from his first class flight from New York, he thought that he would be giving it. too Aaron insists that he'll be giving the eulogy once the funeral gets going.

The dad insisted on having a home funeral and Aaron is just trying to make it through the day as things happen to add more stress to the already stressful day. Uncle Duncan (Ron Glass) is there with his son, Jeff (Columbus Short) and daughter Elaine (Zoe Saldana) and her boyfriend Oscar (James Marsden). Duncan doesn't like Oscar and to help calm him down Elaine gives Oscar one of Jeff's Valium which turns out not to be a Valium but a hallucinogen. Elaine's ex boyfriend Derek (Luke Wilson) shows up with family friend Norman (Tracy Morgan) after they stopped to pick up wheel chair bound and crotchety uncle Russell (Danny Glover). Aaron is facing his wife who wants to have sex that day so she can become pregnant to relieve the pressure being put on them by the grieving widow Cynthia (Loretta Devine) who is upset that she doesn't yet have a grand child and constantly reminds Michelle of that fact.

After starting the day with the wrong body being delivered, the funeral progresses from bad to worse. Oscar freaks out as the drugs kick in causing him to knock over the casket which allows the body to fall out. During a short break to bring the situation under control Aaron is approached by Frank, an unknown little person (Peter Dinklage) saying that their dad and him were as Aaron pointed out later to Ryan, on the down low. Frank wasn't in the will and he feels that he's entitled to $30,000 or he'll expose their relationship with pictures that he brought to the funeral. Not a good day to be in Aaron's shoes.

Many of the family situations seem understandable, but the situation as a whole seems larger than life. Most of the humor worked while some didn't. Hey, I'm all in for a good fart joke, but they didn't have to revert to pure potty humor. Maybe if they brought Frank Oz back in to direct this it would have been better. What do you mean "back in"? Well, you see this is actually a remake of a 2007 movie of the same name that Frank directed. It was a British comedy that had the same set ups, relationships and occupations. Even Peter Dinklage reprises his role as the dead man's love interest. It is said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

These days Hollywood wants franchises where they can take proven characters and create new stories with them instead of spending the time, money and energy to come up with something without having to start from scratch. This seems to be a cost saving measure with a film where you change the location, the ethnicity of the family, and a few lines to try to make it appealing to a new audience. While not as original as I hoped, the power comedy cast didn't deliver a dead pan performance, but provided a lively time that for the most part people could enjoy. Extra kudos to James Marsden. It looked like he had an enjoyable time cutting loose and having fun as he explored the wild side of the characters psychotropic journey.

The movie runs 90 minutes and is rated R for sexual humor, drug content and language.

The Movie Monkey

To subscribe to the audio podcast of the reviews via iTunes click here. Audio versions are released the following Wednesday.