MOVIE OF THE WEEK (6/25/10): GROWN UPS

One of us is one of the biggest stand-up comics of all-time, one of us is a major movie star, one of us has a great TV career, one of one is somewhere in between and one of us was the star of such cinematic classics as The Animal, Big Stan and The Hot Chick! Kurt (Chris Rock), Eric (Kevin James), Rob (Rob Schneider), Marcus (David Spade) and Lenny (Adam Sandler) gaze off into the distance as they contemplate their life as GROWN UPS.
Credit: Tracy Bennett/Columbia Pictures

KEY CAST MEMBERS: Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, Rob Schneider, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, Maria Bello, Joyce Van Patten, Di Quon, Ebony Jo-Ann, Madison Riley, Jamie Chung, Colin Quinn, Steve Buscemi, Tim Meadows, Blake Clark and a bunch of child actors you may or may not ever hear from again.

WRITER: Adam Sandler and Fred Wolf

DIRECTOR: Dennis Dugan

WEB SITE: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/grownups/

THE PLOT: A film starring a bunch of stand-up comedians who all (except for one who didn't do too bad on his own with the sitcom The King of Queens) starred at one point or another on Saturday Night Live, Grown Ups stars Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider and Kevin James as a group of former childhood friends re-uniting at the funeral of their beloved elementary school basketball coach (Blake Clark). And each of the guys has gone their own ways with varying degrees of success.

While Kurt (Rock) is living as a hen-pecked husband with his wife (Maya Rudolph) and her mother (Ebony Jo-Ann), Rob (Schneider) is living with his cougar, er, saber-tooth tiger wife (Joyce Van Patten). Meanwhile, Eric (James) and his wife (Maria Bello) are seemingly enjoying success and family life, they are doing nowhere as good as Lenny (Sandler), a successful Hollywood agent whose wife (Salma Hayek) is a successful fashion designer in her own right. The only one in the group without kids or a wife, Marcus (Spade), is just enjoying living the single life.

So what happens when our fab five reunites for the first time in 30 years? Comedy - or at least something the film's writers and cast hope you think is humorous!

THE TAKE: If I've said it once, I've said it - or in this case, it feels like I've written a 1,000 times: There are some movies that are funny and some movies that are so corny they are almost funny for that reason alone. Well, Grown Ups isn't very grown up as the humor is quite juvenile from start to finish. Have you seen the trailer where Kevin James falls down (because fat people injuring themselves is always funny in movie) and all the guys get caught peeing in the pool (because boily fluids are always funny, too!)? Well, you've seen pretty much everything there is to see in Grown Ups! This isn’t a ground breaking film; it’s just one that goes through the motions to add new ground to its cast’s respective estates.

Look, the acting is whatever - it's not terrible, but it's not going to win any awards. Likewise, the plot is pretty cost-cutter; the real disappointment is that when you have a cast of this caliber humor wise, they should be able to be funnier than say the long forgotten My Family Wedding ... And it's not. Anyone who knows me knows I can appreciate corny humor ... But not for 90 minutes and a 1 bucket of popcorn minimum. This is essentially a younger version of Old Dogs, so if you loved that type of film - or Spade, Sandler, Schneider, Rock and/or James - you'll likely enjoy Grown Ups.

If you come expecting anything more, however, the only one who will end up looking immature will be you and whoever you tricked into coming with you to the theater.

RATING (OUT OF FOUR POSSIBLE BUCKETS OF POPCORN):