Grown Ups (film)

Grown Ups
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Produced by Jack Giarraputo
Adam Sandler
Written by Adam Sandler
Fred Wolf
Starring Adam Sandler
Kevin James
Chris Rock
David Spade
Rob Schneider
Music by Rupert Gregson-Williams
Cinematography Theo van de Sande
Edited by Tom Costain
Production
company
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release dates
  • June 25, 2010
Running time
 102 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $80 million[1]
Box office $271.4 million[1]

Grown Ups is a 2010 American buddy comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, and written by Adam Sandler, who also stars in this film. Besides Sandler, the film co-stars Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, and Rob Schneider. The film tells a story of five childhood friends who won their junior high school basketball championship in 1978. They reunite three decades later to mourn the death of their coach. Meeting at a lakeside cottage they rented when they were young, the friends also re-connect with each other, their spouses, and their children.

Grown Ups was produced by Sandler's production company Happy Madison Productions and was distributed by Columbia Pictures.[2] Sandler, Rock, Schneider, and Spade all joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in the 1990–1991 season; supporting cast including Colin Quinn, Maya Rudolph, Tim Meadows, and Norm Macdonald have also been SNL cast members.

Plot

In 1978, five childhood friends win their junior high school basketball championship. During their celebration at a rented lake house, the friends' coach, Buzzer (Blake Clark), encourages them to live their lives in a similar way to how they played the game. The five had remained close friends up until their graduation and later separated in the present day, and neither of them have had contact with one another. Lenny Feder (Adam Sandler) is a high-powered Hollywood talent agent who is married to fashion designer Roxanne Chase (Salma Hayek), and has three children—one daughter Becky and two sons, Greg and Keith (Jake Goldberg and Cameron Boyce); his sons have become very spoiled much to his annoyance. Eric Lamonsoff (Kevin James) claims he is now a co-owner of a lawn furniture company, is married to Sally (Maria Bello) and has two children, Donna and Bean (Ada-Nicole Sanger and Morgan Gingerich). Much to Eric's chagrin, Bean continues to nurse on Sally. Kurt McKenzie (Chris Rock) is a stay-at-home father who is married to Deanne (Maya Rudolph), the primary breadwinner of the family, and has two children, Andre and Charlotte (Nadji Jeter and China Anne McClain). Deanne is pregnant with another child and her mother (Ebony Jo-Ann) also lives with the family. Rob Hilliard (Rob Schneider) has been divorced three times and has daughters Jasmine, Amber, and Bridget (Madison Riley, Jamie Chung, and Ashley Loren[3]) from those marriages. His current wife, Gloria (Joyce Van Patten), is 30 years older than him. Marcus Higgins (David Spade) is a slacker and lothario. All five friends regularly harass with each other in comedic fashion throughout the film: Lenny for being rich; Eric for being overweight; Kurt for being skinny and not being more useful; Rob for his way of saying "Maize!" and for having a much older wife; and Marcus for being sexually irresponsible.

When the five friends soon find out that Buzzer has died, they all reunite for the first time in three decades and later return to their hometown with their families to pay tribute to Buzzer at his private funeral. Lenny rents the lake house for the 4th of July weekend for his friends to stay at. However, Lenny cannot stay for the whole weekend because Roxanne has a fashion show in Milan. While at the lake house, Lenny is annoyed in which their kids would rather play video games than spend time outdoors, so that he and the other friends are forcing their kids to play outside during their stay instead. Eric has a small incident on a rope swing and injures a bird. At a local restaurant, Lenny talks to his old nemesis, Dickie Bailey (Colin Quinn), who is still upset at Lenny because he allegedly had his foot out of bounds when he made the long-ago game winning shot. Dickie challenges him and his friends to a rematch, but Lenny declines after noting that Dickie is decidedly out of shape. The next day, the five friends spread Buzzer's ashes into the woods. Rob becomes depressed during this event, lamenting his failed marriages, and later says his three daughters from the past marriages are coming. After having to deal with Jasmine, Rob goes and hangs out with his friends, who were fishing. After making some jokes on Rob, the others elect to cheer him up with a game of arrow roulette. Rob remains in the circle the longest, making him the winner, but the arrow hits directly through Rob's foot. When Gloria tries to use a maize-covered poultice, Rob snaps at Gloria. Lenny gets the kids interested in talking on cup-phones and Roxanne accidentally tells Becky that she is the "Tooth Fairy". Happy that they are enjoying the same kind of fun he had as a child, Lenny installs an extensive cup-phone network in the house.

Roxanne ultimately figures out that it is more important to stay at the lake house than going to Milan. The five friends decide to go to a water park, where Bean learns to drink milk out of a carton and Marcus flirts constantly with Jasmine and Amber, having bought them skimpy bikinis. Rob kicks a ride attendant down a water slide, who insults Bridget for being less attractive than her sisters. Eric ignores Donna's warning about a chemical in the kiddie pool that turns urine blue, and chaos results when he and his friends urinate in the pool. The spouses try to attract a hunk, but he is laughed off due to his high-pitched voice. Later, Lenny and the group go to the zip line and meet Dickie again, this time with his own group of friends, including Wiley (Steve Buscemi), who ends up in the hospital after sliding down the zip line by his feet. Lenny teaches his son how to shoot a perfect shot during basketball. Afterwards, the friends end the night by sharing their dance with their spouses. The next day, Roxanne picks up Lenny's phone and confronts him on lying about canceling their flight trip before she agreed on staying for the family instead of going to Milan. Eventually, everyone starts to tell the truth about their feelings and lives. On their final day at the lake house, Lenny and his buddies are challenged once again to a basketball rematch by Dickie. At the game-deciding shot, Lenny purposely misses in order to allow Dickie and his team to win. Before the end of the film, Marcus plays another game of arrow roulette, this time with an entire crowd of people, and everyone takes off with Wiley accidentally getting his foot impaled by the arrow.

Cast

Production

Filming commenced in Southborough, Massachusetts on May 18, 2009, but most of the filming was done in Essex, Massachusetts, Water Wizz at Wareham, Massachusetts, as well as some scenes shot in Marblehead, Massachusetts on the exclusive Marblehead Neck.[5]

Music

The score to Grown Ups was composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams, who recorded his score with a 55-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox.[6]

Release

Box office

The film was a box office success grossing $162,001,186 in the United States and $109,429,003 in other countries, with a worldwide gross of $271,430,189.[1] Happy with the gross, Adam Sandler showed his appreciation by buying brand-new Maserati sports cars for his four co-stars.[7][8] The film won at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards for the "Best Line from a Movie" category, which it won for the line "I want to get chocolate wasted!", delivered by Becky, played by Alexys Nycole Sanchez.

Critical reception

The film was heavily panned by critics, citing mostly the acting performances and lack of substantial plot. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes give the film a score of 10% based on 164 reviews, with an average score of 3.4/10, and the site's consensus is: "Grown Ups' cast of comedy vets is amiable, but they're let down by poor direction and the scattershot, lowbrow humor of a stunted script."[9] Metacritic awarded the film an average score of 30 out of 100 based on 32 reviews.[10]

Awards

Rob Schneider was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for the film, but lost the trophy to Jackson Rathbone for both The Last Airbender and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

Home media

Grown Ups was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on November 9, 2010.

Sequels

Main article: Grown Ups 2

A sequel, titled Grown Ups 2, was released on July 12, 2013. Dennis Dugan, the director of the first film, returned as director. The main cast, including Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, Maria Bello and Steve Buscemi reprised their roles, except Rob Schneider. New cast includes Andy Samberg, Taylor Lautner and Patrick Schwarzenegger. The sequel follows Lenny Feder as he relocates his family back to the small town where he and his friends grew up.[11] Much like its predecessor, Grown Ups 2 was heavily panned[12] and was also a box office hit.[13]

In an interview, David Spade stated possibility for a Grown Ups 3.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Grown Ups (2010) Box Office Mojo
  2. ↑ Tatiana Siegel (2009-02-10). "Columbia pic gets Sandler and friends". Variety (Reed Business Information). Retrieved 2009-05-24.
  3. ↑ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3425573/
  4. ↑ Gate, Bobby (June 21, 2009). "Beverly actress scores plum role". Wicked Local (GateHouse Media).
  5. ↑ Shanahan, Mark (2009-05-18). "Adam Sandler et al. get to work on "Grown Ups"". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2009-05-24.
  6. ↑ Goldwasser, Dan (July 5, 2010). "Rupert Gregson-Williams scores Grown Ups". ScoringSessions.com. Retrieved July 5, 2010.
  7. ↑ "David Spade has yet to drive luxury car Adam Sandler gave him as gift". Mail Online. 11 November 2010. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  8. ↑ Bowman, Zach (11 November 2010). "Adam Sandler gives the gift of Maserati to Grown Ups co-stars". Autoblog.com. Retrieved 2 September 2013.
  9. ↑ "Grown Ups Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 2011-03-25.
  10. ↑ "Grown Ups Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 2010-06-26.
  11. ↑ "Grown Ups Sequel Planned". ComingSoon.net. Retrieved 2011-12-07.
  12. ↑ "Grown Ups 2 - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  13. ↑ "Grown Ups 2 (2013) - Box Office Mojo". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 4 September 2014.

External links

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