Movie review: Grown Ups **

Grown Ups  ** 

Stars: Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Kevin James, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Rob Schneider
Director: Dennis Dugan
Rated: R
Showing: Speciality Cinema week of Friday, September 16 - Friday and Saturday 10pm; Sunday 7pm; Monday to Thursday 9:30pm
Runtime: 133 minutes
Comedy

When their school basketball coach passes away, five friends reunite after more than 30 years to say goodbye.

They gather for a July 4 weekend at a lake house to catch up and meet each others’ families — and relive their youth by teaching their kids how to have fun outdoors without videogames and TV.

Co-written by and starring Adam Sandler, you know what to expect — bottom-of-the-barrel, infantile gags, slapstick and unfunny banter.

It pitches itself as a family comedy but it’s rude, crude and has no heart.

The cast, mostly Saturday Night Live favourites, play the same stereotypical characters they always do — Sandler is a neurotic alpha male, Spader is sleazy and Schneider is weird.

The movie’s only saving graces are Chris Rock, who delivers the poor script with his usual energy, and a cameo from Steve Buscemi.

The female cast, headed by Salma Hayek, are largely there only to be ignored, ogled or, in the case of one the gang’s older wife, repulsive. Overall, it’s smug and lazy filmmaking that no grown up with a brain will raise a smile at.

Watch if you liked: Happy Gilmore, Deuce Bigalow.