Happy Madison Productions is a company that serves a mix bag of nuts. Sometimes they are really ‘on’ with their films (50 First Dates, Click, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo) and sometimes they are severely ‘off’ (The Benchwarmers, Bedtime Stories, Strange Wilderness); you truly never know what you’re going to get out of them.
With that said, Grown Ups has arrived on Blu-ray. What’s great about the film is that it has a slew of fine comedians coming together to make a ‘family’ comedy. With the likes of Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider leading the way there isn’t much that could go wrong, right? Let’s start with the story.
Lenny, Eric, Kurt, Marcus and Rob were teammates on a championship basketball team. Each one looked up to their very well respected coach and learned different life lessons on their way to becoming good men, thanks to Coach Ferdinando. When the coach passes away the guys get together one last time to honor their coach. They rent a house out in the woods and end up bringing their families with them. Finding what they’ve been missing in their lives, they rediscover the power of not only being a team, but also being one big family. They also find out that nothing else is more important.
Before I dive into the bad, let me just say that Grown Ups starts off really well. You get the perfect set up with Sandler’s family shown first as an introvert, technology dependent group of knuckleheads that drive Sandler’s character nuts. In the first five minutes of the film you understand that some bit of normality is missing from his life (and his family as well). When he gets the call about the coach passing away you naturally feel for him and you immediately understand how much this guy meant to Sandler’s Lenny. The next step works out as well when you are introduced through a series of cuts the other players off the team. When they get together at the funeral you also understand how broken their lives are (or at least you suspect) and you see the correlation. When they all decide to stay at the house that Lenny has rented you fully understand the entire set up of the film.
Here’s where it goes wrong.
From this point on the story simply stops feeding off the original storyline. The plot points, which should connect with each other seamlessly, become nothing more than a series of SNL skits. You have guys peeing in a pool, you’ve got guys sitting around talking about women, you have guys making jokes that have nothing to do with the overall story arc, you’ve got a bow and arrow game that seems pointless, etc. Literally, you will feel completely disconnected to the set up. On top of this, the comedy you’re getting is a little bit subpar, which is completely disappointing considering the cast that was brought in for this film. For example, there is a point where David Spade’s character gets completely tanked and is lying drunk on a coach. For about one minute of film time Sandler and crew are sitting there messing with him in his sleep by poking at him and just basically annoying him. That’s a lot of screen time for something that is probably considered more obnoxious than funny.
Anyway, let me just say this before we move on to the Blu-ray portion of this film; I wanted this movie to be funny. It looked lighthearted from the trailer and it look like a subtle comedy that my family could enjoy. It had all the elements in place to make it work well, and even the story set up seemed to be solid. Regretfully, Fred Wolf and Sandler could not keep it all together and on track, which is sad. This movie shouldn’t be considered a failure, as much as a missed opportunity.
Shifting gears, the Blu-ray portion of the film is pretty good. The video quality is top-notch, as you get some pretty scenery to compliment the 1080p upscale. The wooded area and the water park scenes really shine in HD. The audio, which has a very good soundtrack to it, sounds great in DTS-HD format. I have no real complaints about the Blu-ray portion of the film, as it delivers what it promises.
The special features, while short, deliver some good stuff. Here’s what’s included on the Grown Ups Blu-ray:
– Bloopers
o Gag Reel
o “Laughing is Contagious”
– Featurette: “The Cast of Grown Ups”
– Deleted Scenes
– “Riff-O-Rama” Blooper Reel
– Commentary with Director Dennis Dugan
– Featurettes:
o “Dennis Dugan: Hands on Director”
o “The Lost Tapes of Norm MacDonald”
o “Busey and the Monkey”
The special features are actually pretty damn good. You get some good featurettes, some hilarious outtakes and some deleted scenes you would expect to be deleted. Dennis Dugan’s commentary is pretty informative as well, which says a lot about Dugan’s dedication to the film (I commend him for it).