The comedy Grown Ups wasn’t shown in Denver until the night before the movie’s release, seldom a good sign. After about 10 minutes, it became apparent why Grown Ups hadn’t been screened earlier. It's painfully bad.
Starring Adam Sandler and pals (Chris Rock, David Spade, Kevin James and Rob Schneider), the movie tells the story – if you can credit this ragtag collection of gags with anything resembling a plot – of five grown men who won a junior high basketball championship. Thirty years later, they reunite for their beloved coach’s funeral, and promptly resurrect their pre-teen selves.
More painful than humorous, Grown Ups relies on slapstick and crude shtick: A mother (Maria Bello) still nurses her four-year-old child, for example. Yes, some of the jokes involve breast pumps and squirting milk.
Grown Ups left me wondering whether the movie was made so that Sandler could show that he still can shoot a basketball, a sight saved for the inevitable game at the end of the movie. I could see no other reason for this fiasco of a comedy, aside from the fact that five comic actors got to hang out together and look as if they’re having a good time doing material that should have been shot -- basketball style -- into the nearest wastebasket.
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