Grown Ups Reviews

Even though I heard here and there that it was one of the worst movies made in 2010, I was still curious to see how it turned out to be. Surprisingly, I don't think it was that bad actually. Indeed, the concept was actually pretty good and the whole thing was not as mean-spirited as many other Sandler's vehicles. Unfortunately, even though it was not as bad as I thought it would be, it was still pretty average. Above all, I thought it was rather poorly written. Indeed, you have 4 couples, a bunch of kids, David Spade as a single guy, but none of those characters were properly developed. At the beginning, it felt like all those couples had some issues, some kind of deep secrets but you didn't learn anything about them after all. The biggest victim was Chris Rock, my favorite actor of the bunch, as he barely had anything to do or to say during the whole thing. Concerning the jokes, some of them were funny but most of them were rather pathetic and embarrassing. Eventually, it was nothing great and pretty average but I though the whole thing was rather good-hearted and harmless. But it doesn't matter at all what I think because Adam Sandler, once again, made a chuck load of money with this flick. To conclude, even though it is eventually not one of the worst movies starring Adam Sandler, it remains a very average comedy and it is not really worth a look.

This movie is just a bunch of people who used to work together, coming together to make fun of each other while pretending to make a movie with a story line - a story line that is not well written. A movie that is pretty bad, not very funny, and overall, a huge let-down considering the cast of comedians who have done better in their careers. Total garbage.

A lighthearted, and often hilarious comedy film that provides consistent laughs from a great line up of actors. The weakness of this film, and a strong wekaness it is, comes from whenever the story attempts to delve into emotional depth, the goofy characters just not being convincing enough to convey the messages that the story tries to bring across, which spoils some of the fun. It's also unfortunate that a lot of the funniest jokes are reused throughout the film, so that by the second time they don't seem to be all that special. It is surprisingly the middle of this film that proves to be the best part, the start not being all that funny and the ending being pointless and far from a satisfying conclusion to an, overall, not bad film. It should make you smile, at times it made me laugh hysterically, but it really is only aimed at teenage boys and will not appeal to many other groups other than that.

Average movie, i wasn't expecting much from it but exceeded my expectations. The jokes are decents for kids. The story is weak and could have been more explored. What saves are the messages that are passed during the movie, but even so it's all very cliche.

Quite frankly to start off with, there were mixed feelings about Grown Ups seeing as it looks like a fun film to watch, but looks a bit stupid at the same time. However, after seeing it, it certainly is a stupid film and it really wasn't even anything fun to watch. Of course there were going to be one or two moments that were going to make you chuckle, but most of the time it was laughably silly. The trailer made the film seem very fun, entertaining and hilarious but unfortunately, the characters, performances from actors and just the rest of the story in general, made it too cheesy to be fun.


There is one minor note in Grown Ups that could have made this film really great. Because the story involves a group of childhood friends and now that they have been reunited and are now married and have kids, this could have really been something personal. So, unfortunately they selected the wrong writer and director for this film to be able to achieve this. It could have sent out a great message such as knowing that your true friends are the ones who stick by you, always treasure your childhood and to make the most of it while you can and not to mention a few others. So, Grown Ups is in a word; empty. It really lacks heart and that is annoying about films that try to be emotional and exciting to watch.


In 1978, five 12-year-olds win a CYO basketball championship. Thirty years later, they gather with their families for their coach's funeral and a weekend at a house on a lake where they used to party. By now, each is a grownup with problems and challenges: Marcus is alone and drinks too much. Rob, with three daughters he rarely sees, is always deeply in love until he turns on his next ex-wife. Eric is overweight and out of work. Kurt is a househusband, henpecked by wife and mother-in-law. Lenny is a successful Hollywood agent married to a fashion designer; their kids take privilege for granted. Can the outdoors help these grownups rediscover connections or is this chaos in the making?


Admittedly being one who has never been a huge admirer of Adam Sandler, but do like some of his films, I actually thought he could deliver and lead something quite interesting here. Boy, Adam, you really need to get your act together and stop being in these kind of films because you just haven't got it anymore. He just lacked the humour and the emotion that the character he portrayed needed. Chris Rock hasn't been in my good books either over the years, but he was actually alright in this one. Rob Schneider gets on my nerves in every film he has been in, and he manages to succeed at that once again. I don't even fully understand why the film is called ''Grown Ups'' because, yeah the actors within the film look grown-up obviously, but do they act grown up? I think not. Even the kids acted more grown-up than the five guys did. The five guys were like big kids, so character development and acting all around just failed miserably.


Dennis Dugan, I am surprised at you because in the past you have made a great Adam Sandler film: Happy Gilmore (which is my favorite film from Sandler). So, I know he can do a lot better than this. This isn't only incredibly boring, really ridiculous and just not funny at all, but it was poorly directed and it just miserable failed. Grown-Ups could have been something personal and moving, but it just totally went out of hand especially with the lousy actors and the real lack of character development. The script was absolutely atrocious and is perhaps one of the cheesiest scripts that I have had to listen to in a film so pretty much the entire production of the film failed.


Overall, Grown Ups is basically an ultimately failed comedy that is neither funny nor fun. It lacks literally everything, but there have been much worse films than this. Adam Sandler really will have to climb up to the top of the ladder again after this one. This could have been something really good, but it was almost nothing! A true grown up wouldn't fall for this film and would have more sense to see this film for what it really is: empty and heartless.

This has to be one of favorite movies of all time. It is great with all the great characters and humor that appears to be created on the fly. The story is good in that it is something a 5 year old can enjoy as well as an adult. It was well put together from beginning to end.

"We needed to be here. Our kids were turning into snotty, spoiled, little. This is what we needed."

Experiencing 2010's Grown Ups is akin to watching somebody's awful home movies - the people onscreen clearly enjoyed themselves while the camera was rolling, but the sense of fun does not translate to an enjoyable viewing experience for everyone else. In fact, with the amalgamation of a non-existent storyline and the pedestrian directorial style of Dennis Dugan, Grown Ups feels less like a cohesive movie and more like an extraordinarily dull behind-the-scenes documentary about a bunch of stars awkwardly killing time between takes on another (and presumably better) movie. While it does not strike the abysmal depths of Sandler's worst movies (namely You Don't Mess With the Zohan), Grown Ups fails to provide anything worthwhile. Even Sandler's most die-hard followers will have a hard time managing more than a few guffaws during this interminable slog of a comedy.

The premise is exceedingly straightforward. Close friends since 1978 when their team won a basketball championship, Lenny (Sandler), Eric (James), Marcus (Spade), Kurt (Rock) and Rob (Schneider) all went their separate ways during the march into adulthood. When their beloved basketball coach (Clark) dies a few decades later, the gang reunite for the funeral followed by a weekend of remembrance at a lake resort that they adored as kids. Bringing along their wives and forcing the kids away from their video games, the guys set out to ensure the weekend is a blast like the good old days. Oh, and for a bit of conflict, Lenny's family have plans to fly to Italy halfway through the weekend, but this predictably falls through. There are other conflicts which the film awkwardly flirts with, but it never settles on anything worth committing to.

Prior to Grown Ups, director Dennis Dugan had collaborated with Sandler and his pals on several movies, including the memorable and hilarious Happy Gilmore. Unfortunately, Dugan has visibly lost his touch, as the words "hilarious" and "memorable" cannot be applied to Grown Ups in any capacity. The script is notably awful - literally every scene is a dreary set-up for a gag that's usually flat and predictable. The laughs are pedestrian to a cringe-worthy extent, with plenty of fat jokes about Kevin James that are beyond old, and a few shots of Rob Schneider making out with his elderly wife (she's way too old for him, LMFAO!). Naturally, numerous gags about poop, pee and farts were ordered up as well, in addition to a bestiality joke and some rear nudity from Spade. None of this is funny. The waste of talent here is unbelievable, with creativity and wit being eschewed in favour of having Maya Rudolph getting breast milk squirted in her eye.

Grown Ups is threadbare stuff, to the extent that reviewing the film is a hard task. After all, criticising the script seems a bit unfair because there's no evidence to suggest that a script was even written at any point. The entire film is merely a hodgepodge of stale jokes, dramatic conflicts that suddenly arise before being solved within the confines of a single scene, and endless sequences depicting the protagonists sitting around insulting each other like 12-year-olds before saying "I'm just kidding". (Is the irony of the title blatant enough for you?) Much like the majority of Sandler's movies, Grown Ups wants to provide fart and poop jokes in addition to letting us know how sweet and well-meaning it is. Thus, there are awkwardly-placed scenes of half-baked sentiment. For instance, Sandler's character performs a noble gesture towards his rival, and this is followed by a scene in which he explains his noble gesture to ensure nobody missed the point of how selfless he is. How's that for subtlety?

Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider share an easy-going chemistry in the film, with their friendship feeling completely natural. And there's no wonder for this, because they are all friends in real life. However, none of the stars delivered memorable performances here, as they mostly just battled for screen-time and struggled for something approaching actual characters to play. Among the cast, Rock is easily the most underused, with his comedic genius being thrown to the wind in favour of a moody househusband shtick. In addition to these guys, Sandler called upon his support team of cameos to liven up the picture. Among them, Steve Buscemi is the only one to score big laughs, but it's not enough to salvage the film as a whole. If Grown Ups was a bad movie starring just one of these comedians, it would be easy to simply group it with the actor's list of clunkers and move on. But with it being presented as a landmark reunion of these guys, all of the film's shoddy elements become unforgivable offences.

At the very least, there are a few moments when the jokes do hit their mark (including 2 or 3 belly-laughs), but, overall, Grown Ups simply fails to deliver the expected laugh quota. The genuine funny stuff becomes buried underneath the failed, largely predictable jokes and the overuse of lowbrow humour. And the movie commits a cardinal sin: when it isn't funny, it becomes a boring, sluggish chore. Despite a large cast of talented comedians, there's nothing to save this sinking ship of hopeless disappointment.

3.8/10

Orribile filmetto che strappa sì e no due risate massimo, delle quali ne ricordo solo una, la scena in cui sono seduti e alternano il guardare una gnocca ed un albero a tempo per non farsi sgamare. Da evitare, ma solo perchè io non sono entrato nello spirito di un film per americanio oramai "cresciuti", spacciato come comico ma secondo me "melanconico" e coniando un neologismo "melancomico". Wow, che genio che sono.

if you like adam sandler you will love this. Dose not start off too funny and you may be thinking - oops in for a long one - but builds up. The characters unfold and towards the end plenty of belly laughs. Loads of little jibes that you have to listen out for. Great fun for all ages. I was really suprised and turned it off feeling really chuffed to have seen it. 9/10

Light hearted, fun, jokes for children and the adults, a great and hilarious film!