Short People Got ... No Reason To Live!

Grown Ups (2010)

Rating ... D (10)

Old people, short people, fat people, black people. Farts, butts, warts, splats. It sounds like Dr. Seuss but it's actually what passes for adult humor in Grown Ups, the latest Adam Sandler yuk-fest and casual nexus for SNL graduates. Humor by derision and ad-lib dissing are the film's building blocks, rather than story and characters; put another way, I don't exaggerate when I say Grown Ups nears striking distance of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell for ratio of unfunny burns to actual dialogue.

I am not averse to aimless, plotless films but Grown Ups monopolizes its free time to play celebrity coffee shop. Dramatic conflict is replaced by digs at easy targets rather than subversive social commentary while the film's casual spousal and filial relationships are renewed by too-pat, hackneyed sentiment. Sandler patches things with Salma Hayek when he vows to stop the lies while the buddies bond heartier when they ultimately stop feigning wealth and status. In other words, a nauseating justification of rampant male gaze via a "look but don't touch" philosophy of marriage and counterpart female gaze is literally the most interesting idea in Grown Ups.

The film's blunt subtext doesn't help. Grown Ups blindly lambasts youth culture for its reliance on modern conveniences, dainty breed of males, and laughably typecasts video games as mindless kill-fests. (To be fair, the fake game on display most closely resembles Grand Theft Auto, so when it comes to specific targets they hit the nail on the head.) Piling on condescension, Grown Ups slams high society luxuriance in favor of down-home simplicity... which it also slams by stereotyping Colin Quinn and his inbred, braindead posse. They're unable to forget a junior league basketball championship loss from three decades prior, and Sandler throws the resulting grudge match to demonstrate his grace towards those in arrested development. It's spreading the wealth Hollywood-style, and it's as repulsive as ever.