Grown Ups (film)

Grown Ups
Five adult men riding yellow inflatables on a big blue waterslide.
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Produced by Jack Giarraputo
Adam Sandler
Written by Adam Sandler
Fred Wolf
Starring Adam Sandler
Kevin James
Chris Rock
David Spade
Rob Schneider
Music by Rupert Gregson-Williams
Cinematography Theo van de Sande
Edited by Tom Costain
Production
company
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date
  • June 25, 2010 (2010-06-25)
Running time
 102 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $80 million[1]
Box office $271.4 million[1]

Grown Ups is a 2010 American adventure-comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan and stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. It depicts five lifelong friends of a middle school basketball team and their families reuniting for a July Fourth weekend after learning about the sudden death of their coach.

Grown Ups was produced by Sandler's production company Happy Madison Productions and was distributed by Columbia Pictures.[2] Sandler, Rock, Schneider, and Spade all joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in the 1990–1991 season; supporting cast including Colin Quinn, Maya Rudolph, Tim Meadows, and Norm Macdonald have also been SNL cast members. It grossed $271 million and led to a sequel, Grown Ups 2 (2013).

Plot

In 1978, five childhood friends win their junior high school basketball championship. Afterwards, they celebrate at a rented lake house. The friends' coach, Robert Ferdinando, whom they nickname "Buzzer", encourages them to live their lives in a similar way to how they played the game. Thirty years later, Lenny has become an ambitious Hollywood talent agent with his wife, fashion designer Roxanne, and his three children—daughter Becky and two sons Greg and Keith. The boys act like divas in his mansion, much to his chagrin. Eric claims that he is now a co-owner of a lawn furniture company, and is also disappointed in his wife Sally for continuing to breastfeed Bean, one of his two children, the other being Donna. Kurt is a stay-at-home father with two children, Andre and Charlotte. His wife Deanne, the primary breadwinner of the family, is pregnant with another child and shares the house with her mother Ronzoni. Rob, nicknamed Carrot, has been divorced three times, and holds custody of his daughters Jasmine, Amber, and Bridget. His current wife, Gloria, is thirty years his senior. Marcus is a slacker and lothario. All five friends regularly harass each other in comedic fashion: Lenny for being wealthy, Eric for being overweight, Kurt for being henpecked, Rob for his continuous use of the joke "Maize!" and for having a much older wife, and Marcus for being sexually juvenile.

The friends each find out that Buzzer has died, and reunite at their hometown with their families, a first in the three decades. Intending to pay tribute to Buzzer at a private funeral, Lenny rents the lake house for the fourth of July weekend for his friends to stay at. However, Roxanne has planned a fashion show in Milan, forcing Lenny to leave early. While at the lake house, he becomes disheartened at how his sons are playing video games instead of being outdoors, and pushes them to play outside along with his friend's children, even being forced to have Eric demonstrate a rope swing next to the lake, only for Eric to chicken out due to the swing being too high above the water and accidentally hit a nearby tree in the process. At a local restaurant that night, Lenny talks to his old nemesis, Dickie, who is still angry towards Lenny for an error in the match, where his shot shouldn't have counted since he allegedly had his foot on the outside line. With this, Dickie challenges Lenny and his friends to a rematch, but he declines when commenting on Dickie's health. The next day, Buzzer's ashes are spread in the woods while Rob has a confidence crisis, regretting his failed marriages, and later warns the arrival of his three daughters from the previous marriages. After having to deal with Jasmine, he then relaxes with his friends partaking in fishing. After roasting Rob, the others elect to cheer him up with a game of arrow roulette. Rob wins by staying in the circle for the longest time, but the arrow impales his foot when it flies back down. Rob then snaps at Gloria for using a maize-covered poultice. That night, Lenny manages to get the kids interested in talking on cup-phones and Roxanne accidentally reveals herself to be the "Tooth Fairy" when Becky listens in. Now happy that they are enjoying a similar kind of young fun that he had, Lenny proceeds to install an extensive cup-phone network in the house.

Roxanne settles on staying at the lake house over going to the fashion show. The friends decide to visit a water park, where Eric teaches Bean to drink regular milk directly out of a carton and Marcus repeatedly flirts with Jasmine and Amber, having bought them skimpy bikinis. The families cause chaos throughout the park; Rob pushes a ride attendant down a water slide when he insults Bridget for being less attractive than her sisters; Eric ignores Donna's warning about a chemical in the children's pool that turns urine blue; the spouses spot and attempt to attract a body-builder, but he is laughed off due to his high-pitched Canadian accent; and at the zip line attraction, Lenny and the group meet Dickie again, accompanied by his own group of friends and former teammates, including Wiley, who is severely injured after crashing into a shed while sliding down the zip line by his feet. Lenny teaches his son how to shoot a perfect shot during basketball, and the friends then end the night by sharing a dance with their spouses. The next day, Roxanne picks up Lenny's phone and confronts him on lying about canceling their flight trip before she agreed on staying. Eventually, everyone concedes into admitting their own truths about how they feel with their lives. On their final day at the lake house, Lenny accepts the rematch once and for all, and plays against their former opponents. At the game-deciding shot, Lenny purposely misses to allow Dickie's team to get a proper win. Before the end of the film, Marcus plays another game of arrow roulette, but with a larger crowd of people this time. Everyone fearfully takes off, and a still paralyzed Wiley gets his foot impaled by the arrow.

Cast

Main cast

  • Adam Sandler as Leonard 'Lenny' Feder
    • Michael Cavaleri as Young Lenny
  • Kevin James as Eric Lamonsoff
    • Andrew Bayard as Young Eric
  • Chris Rock as Kurt McKenzie
    • Jameel McGill as Young Kurt
  • David Spade as Marcus "Higgy" Higgins
    • Kyle Brooks as Young Marcus
  • Rob Schneider as Rob "Carrot" Hilliard
    • Joshua Matz as Young Rob

The Feder family

The Lamonsoff family

The McKenzie family

The Hilliard family

Other characters

Production

Filming commenced in Essex County, Massachusetts, in August, 2009.[4]

Release

Box office

Grown Ups grossed $162 million in the United States and $109.4 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $271.4 million against a production budget of $80 million.[1] Grown Ups surpassed Click to become Sandler's highest-grossing film worldwide.[5] Happy with the gross, Adam Sandler showed his appreciation by buying brand-new Maserati sports cars for his four co-stars.[6][7]

Critical response

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 10% based on 165 reviews and an average rating of 3.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Grown Ups' cast of comedy vets is amiable, but they're let down by flat direction and the scattershot, lowbrow humor of a stunted script."[8] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 30 out of 100 based on reviews from 32 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[9] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[10]

Connie Ogle of the Miami Herald referred to it as "the perfect poster child for this maddening summer of movie mediocrity."[11] Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail criticized what he saw as blatant commercialism, saying the cast "lob[bed] gags they surely disdain at an audience they probably despise while reserving their own laughter for that off-camera dash all the way to the bank." Richard Roeper went as far as to say that it was "a blight upon the bright canvas of American cinema", and that he hated it.[12] Tom Long of the Detroit News called it "trite comedy" and "total garbage."[13] On the other end of the spectrum, Lisa Kennedy of the Denver Post called it "crude and decent-hearted" and "easy, breezy, predictable."[14]

Awards

Rob Schneider was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for the film, but lost to Jackson Rathbone for both The Last Airbender and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

The film won at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards for the "Best Line from a Movie" category, which it won for the line "I want to get chocolate wasted!", delivered by Becky, played by Alexys Nycole Sanchez.

Home media

Grown Ups was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on November 9, 2010.

Sequel

A sequel, titled Grown Ups 2, was released on July 12, 2013. Dennis Dugan, the director of the first film, returned as director. The main cast, including Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, Maria Bello and Steve Buscemi reprised their roles, except Rob Schneider. New cast includes Andy Samberg, Taylor Lautner and Patrick Schwarzenegger. The sequel follows Lenny Feder as he relocates his family back to the small town where he and his friends grew up.[15] Like its predecessor, Grown Ups 2 received very poor reviews[16] but was still a box office hit.[17]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Grown Ups (2010) Box Office Mojo
  2. ↑ Tatiana Siegel (2009-02-10). "Columbia pic gets Sandler and friends". Variety. Reed Business Information. Retrieved 2009-05-24.
  3. ↑ Gate, Bobby (June 21, 2009). "Beverly actress scores plum role". Wicked Local (GateHouse Media).
  4. ↑ Shanahan, Mark (2009-05-18). "Adam Sandler et al. get to work on "Grown Ups"". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2009-05-24.
  5. ↑ "Adam Sandler Movie Box Office Results". www.boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 2018-02-12.
  6. ↑ "David Spade has yet to drive luxury car Adam Sandler gave him as gift". Mail Online. 11 November 2010. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  7. ↑ Bowman, Zach (11 November 2010). "Adam Sandler gives the gift of Maserati to Grown Ups co-stars". Autoblog.com. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  8. ↑ "Grown Ups (2010)". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved April 19, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Grown Ups Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved June 26, 2010.
  10. ↑ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com.
  11. ↑ Connie Ogle, Grown Ups (PG-13): Five goofballs and a funeral, Miami Herald (June 24, 2010).
  12. ↑ Rick Groen, Grown Ups: How low can they go? Just watch, Globe & Mail (June 25, 2010).
  13. ↑ Tom Long, Review: Adam Sandler's 'Grown Ups' is a lazy, trite comedy, Detroit News (June 25, 2010).
  14. ↑ Lisa Kennedy, Movie review: “Grown Ups” — or are they?, Denver Post (June 23, 2010).
  15. ↑ "Grown Ups Sequel Planned". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved 2011-12-07.
  16. ↑ "Grown Ups 2 - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  17. ↑ "Grown Ups 2 (2013) - Box Office Mojo". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
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