By this point there are two kinds of people who are still going to see Adam Sandler movies. There are those who are so astonished by what little work goes into them, by what paid vacations they are for Sandler, his friends, and the gorgeous actresses he casts as his friends’ wives, that they go to hate watch them. They go to see just how juvenile, vile, and brainless the humor can get. To see just how egregious all of the product placement can get. To see just how lazy Sandler’s relying-on-his-old-schtick performances can get. To see just how much misogyny, homophobia, and discrimination toward those with physical deformities can be crammed in and passed off as harmless ribbing. And then to see how sudden, ineffectual, and sappy the dramatic turn in the third act can get, when the music softens, Sandler gives a placating speech, and you’re supposed to forgive him of all his backward, pig ignorant, painfully unfunny behavior. Those are one kind of people who still see Adam Sandler movies. Then there are the philistines, the tuned out masses who don’t give a moment’s thought to what they put in their brains, who sit in their theater chairs, chew their popcorn, laugh at all the places the rhythm of the delivery hints that there was supposed to be a joke, and then go home without ever dwelling on what they’ve watched for another single second.
Much like the first Grown Ups, this sequel fits very much in the same Happy Madison mold we’ve become so familiar with. It’s so lazy in its conception that it doesn’t even tell a real story or create real gags with a setup and punchline, so much as it just bombards you with crude imagery. It denigrates women until they become nagging sex objects. It mocks everyone who doesn’t fit into Sandler’s bro-mold of what humanity should be. And, most of all, it’s just painfully, painfully unfunny. Unlike the first Grown Ups though, it is so full of head-scratching weirdness that it almost becomes an interesting, abstract experiment rather than an empty, never-ending bore. And humor is a subjective thing. Though I can say with absolute certainty that no one with a hint of discerning taste will find a single moment of this lazy, bottom-feeding, cynical cash grab funny, it’s impossible to deny that I saw it in a theater full of consumers who were inexplicably but enthusiastically howling with laughter at every burp, every fart, and every case of someone falling down or getting made fun of for being born different. Grown Ups 2 is a really bad movie, but it’s not as bad as the first Grown Ups, and it’s not even the worst movie I’ve seen this year (that honor still has to go to either A Haunted House or Movie 43), so in that respect it’s actually something of a triumph. Plus, who are we to deny anyone of any joy that it might bring them?
