Grown Ups (6/10)

[caption id="attachment_1781" align="alignleft" width="94" caption="(imdb.com)"]

[/caption]Surprise, surprise. I actually enjoyed myself.It's not the cleverest thing Adam Sandler has done. It seemed like a good idea on paper to gather these comedians to star in the movie. But the writing was weak. The "real" acting was just enough. So what saved the movie?The gags. The movie was filled with them and I wouldn't have minded more. Even though they were mindless and senseless, but director Dennis Dugan - having worked so many times already with Sandler - knew how to create the scenes well. Only thing missing was me laughing till I teared up.However, a lot of the impromptu work was very jerky - in the sense that you could tell it was cut-and-paste work. The flow was very clearly interrupted and that took the fun out of the whole concept of spontaneity. Obviously they took a lot of takes and decide later which would go the best.And having that many names in one movie, of course the character developments had to suffer. And each scene had to go by very episodically. But because the movie never started out as one that would make sense, or I went in with less expectations, I wasn't so bothered with what the movie wasn't.Nevertheless, eye candies in Sandler's movies are always welcomed. And this time we got Madison Riley and Jamie Chung, who looked fantastic as opposed to when I last saw her in Dragonball: Evolution. Maybe because there's so little scenes with her. (Side track: I can't believe the sequel of Dragonball is in the works and there's still nothing on Airbender yet.)But what I appreciated most, even if it was just a minor thing, was how Sandler made the story meaningful in the end. Nice touch.