Grown Ups - Not Quite Fully Grown  
| I didn't have high expectations when going into Grown Ups. All I wanted to do was laugh and laugh is what I did. I knew the story would be lack luster and that there wouldn't be that many redeeming qualities. I must say however, that I was pleasantly surprised at how fun this movie was and how much I enjoyed it.
The basic story is very simple - a group of friends come together after a long period of time after finding out that their old basketball coach died. The spend the long weekend at their coach's beach house with their families as a way to reminisce about him. There isn't much else to it besides that. Some lessons are learned along the way (some pretty good ones actually) and everyone is happy. Yeah for happy people!
Sure, the writing wasn't exactly the best, but these guys are all comedians and they can make it work. A lot of the humor is slapstick (which I often find difficult to make me laugh) but it worked because of the actors. My favorite two of the fivesome are Kevin James and David Spade. Adam Sandler is often hit and miss and Rob Schneider is usually take him or leave him too. Chris Rock is by far the most annoying but I actually found his stay-at-home dad persona to be quite funny and well played. The film clearly looked like these guys had a blast filming and it translates well into the audience. I had a blast watching them (envious of their time of course). The women were great and the kids were cute. A pretty damn good combination for a summer comedy. And a welcome change from the Apatow group who I'm quickly growing tired of, especially Seth Rogen (the man is freaking annoying).
I found Adam Sandler's character to be quite interesting. Considering he was supposed to be a more mature person in Funny People, I actually found his character here to be more mature and much more tolerable. I couldn't stand him in Funny People. Grown Ups indeed. Ok, maybe they were a little immature and not quite fully grown, but who doesn't let lose a little when they are around old friends?
I was also surprised by one of the big themes or messages that the movie brought forward. The fact that today's kids are so technologically brainwashed that they never spend any time outdoors. I will admit that when video games and technology boomed, I quickly abandoned the outdoors and moved inside. I used to always play and do things outside, but video games were much more entertaining and a great way to pass the time. The film shows that you can have fun outside without the aide of technology. Pardon the cliche, but the outdoors are your oyster, eat it up!
If you take the film lightly and just sit back and let it all play out, I'm sure you will enjoy it. The film is by no means perfect or even great, it's just very middle of the row enough to separate from the usual comedies taking over multiplexes these days. A pleasant surprise indeed.
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