‘Grown Ups’: Middling Comedy About Friendship That Never Quite Lands

“Grown Ups” wants to be a warm comedy about friendship, aging, and the simple pleasures of summer. It mostly fails, settling instead for a series of jokes about farting, penis sizes, and the general absurdity of middle-aged men acting like children. The film stars Adam Sandler as Scott, a man who returns to his hometown after the death of his best friend, Les (Kevin James). What follows is a parade of slapstick, gross-out humor, and some attempt at emotional weight that never quite lands.

Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.

The Plot, Simplified

Scott comes back to his childhood home to grieve, but the movie keeps pushing him toward a wedding, a beach vacation, and a series of mishaps involving food, animals, and public embarrassment. His friends are there too: Eric (David Spade), Garth (Chris Kattan), and Hannah (Tracy Morgan), each bringing their own brand of chaos. The setup is fine. The execution is not.

Why the Humor Misses

The problem with “Grown Ups” is that its jokes are built on repetition and excess rather than wit. Sandler’s character spends most of the film reacting to the chaos around him, and the film rarely lets him say anything clever. Instead, it leans on physical comedy, sight gags, and a running joke about Scott’s inability to control his bowels. This is funny for a minute. It is not funny for 90 minutes.

The film also struggles with tone. It wants to be heartfelt about loss, but it keeps undercutting that with crude humor. One scene involves Scott getting hit by a car while trying to catch a ball. Another involves a character eating something disgusting and reacting with exaggerated horror. These moments are played for laughs, but they sit uncomfortably next to scenes meant to be tender.

The Cast Carries What the Writing Can’t

The cast is the film’s greatest asset. Kevin James brings warmth to Les, even as the script asks him to be a victim of pratfalls. David Spade gets some of the best lines, playing Eric as a neurotic mess. Chris Kattan and Tracy Morgan round out the group, though their characters are largely defined by their physical comedy. The chemistry is there. The material is not.

The Wedding Disaster That Defines It

The centerpiece of “Grown Ups” is a wedding that goes spectacularly wrong. Scott’s sister-in-law-to-be, played by Maya Rudolph, tries to make everything perfect, but the film insists on ruining it. The disaster includes a cake that falls, a band that breaks up, and a general sense of chaos. It is the funniest stretch of the movie, but it also shows the film’s central flaw: it is better at creating chaos than at resolving it.

The disaster is a good idea. The execution is overlong. The film spends too much time showing the destruction and not enough time showing the aftermath. There is no resolution, no moment where the characters learn from their mistakes. They simply move on to the next set piece.

The Final Score

“Grown Ups” is not a terrible film. It is just not a good one. It has a talented cast, a few funny moments, and a premise that could have worked. But the script is lazy, the humor is crude, and the emotional beats fall flat. It is a film that knows how to be loud but not how to be smart.

• The cast delivers consistently solid performances
• The physical comedy lands occasionally
• The tone shifts between sincerity and crassness without finding balance
• The plot offers little beyond a series of set pieces

This is a film that will make you laugh in the moment and forget about it five seconds later. It is the kind of movie you watch with friends, laugh at, and then immediately forget. It has no lasting value.

“Grown Ups” is a middling comedy that never quite reaches its potential. It is not a waste of time, but it is not a great use of it either. The final score is 3 of 10.

Adam Sandler · comedy review · Grown Ups · Kevin James · movie critique