“Grown Ups” is one big letdown

Grown Ups isn’t just bad, it is embarrassingly bad. This movie is so lame that it gives lame a bad name. To modify a line from Robert Benchley, this is one of those movies in which all the actors unfortunately enunciated very clearly.

This movie reminded me of sex, or in other words the most fun you can have without laughing, except for the part about fun.

I’m not in the habit of forgetting movies, but in this case I will make an exception. But I digress.

Adam Sandler is responsible for this sorry excuse of a movie, and you get the notion that he just called four or five of his buddies and said in the best Mickey Rooney tradition, “Hey, I’ve got an idea. Let’s make a movie!”

The premise is that in 1978 five kids won a championship basketball game on the last shot at the buzzer, it was the only championship team the coach ever had, and Coach “Buzzer” was very special to those boys.

Well, 30 years later, the coach has died, and the kid who made the winning shot, Adam Sandler, arranges for the other four team members to all show up for the coach’s funeral in New England with their families.

The other team members have grown up to be Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider, and they all show up with their wives, children, and other assorted baggage.

They all stay together in a cabin by a lake, and there are lots of jokes about the kids texting instead of just talking, lots of jokes about rude and obnoxious kids, lots of breast-feeding jokes, lots of fart jokes, urinating jokes, more fart jokes, old-age jokes, and jokes about city kids learning how to play outside without video games.

Finally, you just wait for the movie to be over, and you ask yourself what is Salma Hayek doing in this movie, what is Maria Bello doing in this movie, and even what is Steve Buscemi doing in this movie?

And, of course, at the end there is too much talking as all the couples become honest with each other, but even worse than that, there is a Big Game rematch with the grown-up kids from the other team.

Grown Ups is just equal-opportunity put-downs and one big letdown.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”