GROWN UPS 2
BY CHRISTOPHER HASKELL
NOVEMBER 3, 2013


With zero laughs and more bewilderment than anything, “Grown Ups 2” squanders the first film’s good fortune and makes it dreadful. Adam Sandler brings back the group of friends from the first film, including Chris Rock, David Spade, and Kevin James, as Sandler’s character Lenny has moved his family back to his hometown. It’s this setting that brings Shaq, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Taylor Lautner into one of the most unfunny films of the year. Facing old bullies from school and new bullies from the college campus nearby, the screenplay for this film reads like a mad lib of bad ideas, none of which are executed with any grace or even through-line, leaving this to be one bad joke after another. As none of these comedians are ever very funny, I’m hard-pressed to even acknowledge this film as a comedy, with constant dead-end story-lines, like Lenny’s son playing football and hurting his leg for no apparent reason whatsoever. Perhaps this is a sign that Sandler is completely out of ideas and is way past his prime, or perhaps its a failed attempt and recreating a mediocre first film at best, but whatever it is, I hope it goes away and never comes back.


RELEASE DATE
July 12, 2013
DIRECTOR
Dennis Dugan
WRITTEN BY
Brian Duffield
Adam Cozad
STUDIO
Sony Pictures Releasing
PG-13
(for crude and suggestive content, language and some male rear nudity)
COMEDY
101 minutes






CINEMATOGRAPHER
Theo van de Sande
COMPOSER
Rupert Gregson-Williams
EDITOR
Tom Costain
CAST
Adam Sandler
Kevin James
Chris Rock
David Spade
Salma Hayek
Maya Rudolph
Maria Bello
Nick Swardson
Steve Buscemi
Colin Quinn
Tim Meadows
Jon Lovitz
Shaquille O’Neal
Steve Austin
Milo Ventimiglia
Cameron Boyce
Cheri Oteri
Halston Sage
Andy Samberg
Bobby Moynihan
Akiva Schaffer
Patrick Schwarzenegger
Will Forte
Taylor Lautner
PRODUCED BY
Adam Sandler
Jack Giarraputo
BUDGET
$80 million
