Grown Ups 2 – You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, I’ll wince

Paul Peterson

First of all, I have to apologize for my unscheduled holiday. Life caught up with me so I was away from the computer and movies for a couple of weeks but now I’m back, and for the most part, I’m kind of sorry I am given what I’ve watched in the last little bit.
I really enjoyed Turbo.
The little snail that could. It’s from Dreamworks and it’s very cute and has a great story but it has underperformed at the box office. It just may have been caught in the wealth of kids movies that are out this summer.
I tend to not go into a lot of detail in terms of reviewing animated films these days. It comes down to: Does the audience enjoy it? Is it visually engaging and does it have at least one cute adorable character?
Yes, yes and yes.
I also enjoyed the rather sardonic delivery of Paul Giamatti as Chet, who understands what it really means to be a snail.
It’ll make a great rental when it comes out in the fall.
Then there’s Smurfs 2
Ok.
I struggle with live action mixing with animation. It confuses me. Am I watching a cartoon or a movie? How do the worlds overlap? Is Smurfette making goo goo eyes at me? It’s all very confusing. However people seem to enjoy it and there’s a lot of smurfalicious fun, so ok, they get a pass. I’m happy people are buying tickets to it.

Then there’s The Wolverine. I think it’s interesting that a lot of women I know love this movie. LOVE IT. I don’t imagine it’s because Hugh Jackman rarely wears a shirt throughout the entire performance. Nah. Anyway I think I’ll review that in full next week or soon enough.

The rest of this column is my mea culpa to one Mr. Adam Sandler.
When my daughter Hollie was younger we would play a game of Bingo at family functions. Being the inappropriate role model that I am this involved awarding  a letter in the word Bingo  to some problematic relative every time they said or did something obnoxious. First to call Bingo won. We were never sure what, but it made some bad behaviour tolerable.
I held my nose and decided to watch Grown Ups 2 the other night and give the film a letter every time there was something embarrassing on screen. 10 minutes in the game was over and I was shaking my head
It’s just so bad.
And people love it.
I understand that this is the same review I write for every Adam Sandler movie but I am ready to surrender to his genius. It’s impressive in a regrettable way.
He’s so successful that he writes and produces the movies we imagined when we were 12.
It hit me in the ridiculous scene when Stone Cold Steve Austin takes a dive at Sandler’s big backyard party.
He’s his high school bully who somehow has a son in Afghanistan while his classmate Sandler has a 12 year old son. I’m no mathematician but ummm…??? Oh never mind.
That’s the least of the problems with that scene. On a side note, we really do need more wrestlers acting. It just never disappoints. In similar news, we need more sarcasm in movie review columns.
It’s so corny and overwrought and I give up.
I could hear a lot of random laughter throughout the performance. Big laughs.
Not polite chuckles. Thigh-slapping hyuck hyuck laughter.
Good grief.
So, Grown Ups 2 is a terrific Adam Sandler movie. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wince.
No, I’ll wince.
But I’m going to stop apologizing for playing these movies.
You get what you pay for. You get what you deserve.
I’m still sorry.
Grown Ups 2 makes me miss the good old days of Grown Ups 1, another cheesefest I hated. It was a lot better though. Who cares. Enjoy.
As always, other opinions are welcome, but wrong. That’s it for this week. The cheque’s in the mail and I’m outta here. Paul