GROWN UPS

Grown Ups stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello and Maya Rudolph. Directed by Dennis Dugan. Rated PG-13 with a running time of 1 hr. and 42 mins.

Sandler, James, Rock, Spade and Schneider play best friends who gather to mourn the loss of their championship basketball coach 30 years after said championship. With their wives and kids they hang out at a lake house and pretty much crack joke after joke and well yeah basically thats it.

Grown Ups was a semi funny kinda good movie. It had its laughs and it definitely had its misses. My main problem with it was lack of story and how lazy the whole thing felt. In the very beginning I was very worried because it seemed to be like the director just set up a camera and the five guys (Sandler, Rock, James, Schneider and Spade) basically started telling jokes about each other. Another alarming thing was that once a joke was told the five stars would start laughing right in the movie. So it just had the feeling that it was lazy and without a story.

Things did start to move towards a somewhat kind of story dealing with martial problems, spoiled kids and a four year old that still breast feeds. The latter being pretty funny. There is also a funny bit with Schneider's character having super model looking daughters while he looks like well ummm Rob Schneider. One thing I didn't get was how Salma Hayek and Maria Bello came to be in this movie. They weren't really funny and and didn't do much. It is wierd because they tend to do more serious dramatic roles. Oh well.

Basically this movie had funny moments and very unfunny moments. But the entire cast is like able so its not dreadful with its sappy moments where it tries to be serious. Definitely not a step up for Adam Sandler comedies but I wouldn't call it a step down either. Grown Ups is not a Big Daddy or even Happy Gilmore but its definitely way better than the dreadful You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Just enough here to recommend. Flawed but worthy.

C+