Grown Ups

The Friends of Adam Sandler Jobs Creation Program is in full swing in Grown Ups. With this movie, he might have created more jobs than Bush and Obama combined.

Sandler stars as Lenny - an ultra-successful Hollywood agent with pampered Hollywood kids and a fashion designer wife (Salma Hayek), who is more of a workaholic than he is. Sadly, the basketball coach who led Lenny and his buddies to the city youth championship thirty years ago has passed away, and the whole gang has reunited for the funeral.

Lenny decides it would be fun to spend some time with his pals, and hopes to teach his kids a little something about being real kids, so he rents a lake house for all of them to share for the weekend, which could be the best or worst idea of his life.

Does the hilarity ensue?

Grown Ups plays more like a series of funny scenes and ideas strung together (and not fully realized), but it also benefits from the warmth of true friendship between the stars.

Much of this comes from Sandler, who wrote the script with Fred Wolf, and filled the movie with equal parts raunchy comedy, potty humor, gross out stunts, constant razzing between the characters, physical pratfalls and plain, old fashioned goofball laughs. However, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Kevin James and Sandler have an easiness and comfort with each other that comes across on screen when needed, which makes the audience feel brought in as a member of the gang.

Sure, most of the humor is obvious and plays on stereotypes, sometimes hitting the mark, and, sometimes, missing completely and immensely.

Rock's Kurt is the target of jokes about the gender role reversal in his position as a househusband who likes baking and Grey's Anatomy.

Schneider's Rob gets the gross out humor as the oversensitive guy with an overt display of his love for older ladies.

Spade's Marcus gets a few jokes about his height, but gets to dish it out more than he has to take it, which gives Marcus the best lines in the movie.

Meanwhile, James's Eric is ridiculed for his girth just like he was in King of Queens, Hitch, Paul Blart:Mall Cop, his stand up comedy shows, and probably his family's Thanksgiving dinner celebrations (you get the picture). Like I said, this isn't the smartest, most ground breaking or erudite comedy (especially as we meet the guys' adversaries), but you will laugh more than not.

However, Grown Ups is another movie where the audience is told to reach certain conclusions instead of witnessing them play out on the screen. We are told more about the lessons learned and the growth of the characters than actually seeing it on screen. And, the silliness goes into ridiculous and unrealistic territory, when the rest of the movie is supposed to be more grounded and touching than that.

Grown Ups is rated PG-13 for crude material including suggestive references, language and some male rear nudity.