Directed by Dennis Dugan, written and produced by Adam Sandler, Grown Ups is a 2010 comedy, a bromedy if you will, starring Sandler, Kevin James,Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. The ladies are Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolf and both Norm McDonald & Steve Buscemi have bit roles in it too.
The movie is about 5 school friends who were part of a won their junior high school basketball championship in 1978. 30 years later each of them get a phone call that their beloved coach has died and they met up for the funeral with their respective families. Lenny Feder (Adam Sandler) is a high-powered Hollywood talent agent who is married to Roxanne Chase (Salma Hayek), a fashion designer, and has three children, his two spoiled sons, Greg and Keithie who always play with the latest gadgets and his cutie little daughter, Becky. Eric Lamonsoff (Kevin James) claims he is now a co-owner of a lawn furniture company, is married to Sally (Maria Bello) and has two children, Donna and Bean – Bean continues to nurse on Sally, which is source of much hilarity in the movie. Kurt McKenzie (Chris Rock) is a stay-at-home father who is married to Deanne (Maya Rudolph), the primary breadwinner of the family (who is also pregnant) and has two kids. Deanne’s mother also lives with the family. Rob Hilliard (Rob Schneider) has been divorced three times and has daughters Jasmine, Amber, and Bridget from those marriages. His current wife, Gloria, is 30 years older than him. Marcus Higgins (David Spade playing David Spade as he does in all his roles) is a lazy womanizer.
After their reunion at the funeral, including a funny but touching song by Rob, the 5 friends bring their families to a big lake house where they used to have a lot of fun growing up. Roxanne wants to leave the next day to go to Milan for a fall showing but Lenny wants her to stay and have all the families bond over the 4th of July long weekend. At a local restaurant, Lenny runs into his old nemesis, Dickie Bailey, who is still upset at Lenny because he allegedly had his foot out of bounds when he made the long-ago game winning shot. Dickie challenges him and his friends to a rematch, but Lenny declines, noting that Dickie is decidedly out of shape. The 5 friends scatter their coach’s ashes according to his wishes and then proceed to have fun – going hiking, taking the families to a water park where Bean is finally weaned off breast milk and onto milk from a carton. Rob’s two older daughters show up – two rather hot daughters who the men keep ogling at – and his 3rd daughter looks a lot like him.
While hiking they play a game of arrow roulette – shooting an arrow straight into the air and running for cover – but it backfires when Rob gets it impaled on his foot. At the water park they continue to have a lot of fun and run into Dickie and his friends and Wiley (Buscemi) gets injured when he attempts a dangerous stunt in the air, crashing into a cabin. The kids bond while playing cup & strings in the night much to Lenny’s delight. Roxanne ultimately figures out that it is more important to stay at the lake house than going to Milan. On their final day at the lake house, Lenny and his buddies are challenged again to a basketball rematch by Dickie. At the game-deciding shot, Lenny purposely misses in order to allow Dickie to finally win. Before the end of the film, Marcus plays another game of arrow roulette, this time with an entire crowd of people, and everyone takes off, with the already-injured Wiley getting his foot impaled by the arrow.
It’s fun it’s silly. Not the best bromedy comedy I have seen but it’s still fun. I’ll give it an 8 outta 10!