Movie Review: Grown Ups 2

I have peered into the dark, dank chasm of bubbling sulphuric acid where humor unwillingly takes a dip and dies a slow screechy excruciatingly painful death. The chasm is called Grown Ups 2. 

Every time Adam Sandler makes a movie, the comedy quotient of the world shrinks by a few degrees, but with Grown Ups 2 it approaches apocalyptic levels of low. That the first Grown Ups was an affront to cinema, humor, celluloid, art and the environment is well known, but the sequel elevates terribleness so high up the film becomes borderline hazardous to humans. It’s a bit unfair to call the audiences stupid for watching Sandler’s films, but the knowledge of the man making twelve $100 million films in his career makes me want to grab a flamethrower and set the entire human race on fire. We have failed as a species and we deserve death and even more horrifying punishments, like Grown Ups 2.

The gang from the original film is back, and is puckered up even more tightly to flex its back cleavage for our hungry eyes. Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock and David Spade reunite for a decomposing landfill of stupid skits, lame puns, sexist one-liners and offensive sight gags. The plot is pretty much nonexistent, even though the ‘story’ is written by three (yes three) people who presumably stay in a redneck farm where wrestling naked with pigs in the mud is considered avant-garde art. I also assume that these same people snigger every time someone says the words 'pussy', 'balls', ‘ass’, ‘homos’, ‘fags’ and consider roadkill necrophilia as rib tickling comedy.

The above presumptions were made because Grown Ups 2 is full of scenes that resemble animal excreta but are passed off as comedy. In one scene a man in really small shorts climbs a rope and everyone around him witnesses his gross hairy golden globes, while a black kid remarks “Y'all he's got to put those Easter eggs back in the basket dayummmnn”. Another scene, which becomes a running gag and an important plot point of the film, has Kevin James doing a Burp Sneeze Fart and espousing the values of the same to his kid. One scene has the four heroes attending their kids’ school dance recital and ogling at the dance trainer who displays her wares like a stripper – a police officer remarks “I want to arrest her for disturbing the peace, in my pants”.

That funny enough for you? Maybe you like some variety in humor. Don’t worry, Sandler’s got your back because Grown Ups 2 also has the unrelenting hilarity of an ice cream man fixing his machine and inadvertently looking like he’s defecating into the cones. That is indeed some A grade comicality right there. Sandler and gang thought that all that still wouldn’t be enough to send you to the nearest neurologist, so they even bring in Taylor Lautner from the Twilight movies as a ‘frat boy’ to destroy whatever brain cells that remain after an hour of colossal mental torture. One ought to thank Sandler though, because thanks to this movie the dreadfulness of all future films will be measured on a scale of 1 to Grown Ups 2. 

(First published in MiD Day)