MOVIE REVIEWS: GROWN UPS 2

Adam Sandler movies generally evoke the scorn of most critics but Grown Ups 2 is eliciting outright contempt. “This is pap, plain and simple,” comments Andy Webster in the New York Times. Sara Stewart in the New York Post allows it about a third of a star and calls it “odious.” And Mark Olsen in the Los Angeles Times notes that near the beginning of the film, Sandler is peed on in the face by a deer. “How one feels about that — is it funny, is it cheap, is it a weird curiosity? — will likely be an accurate litmus test for responses to the rest of the film.” The only thing approaching a positive review comes from Elizabeth Weitzman in the New York Daily News, who acknowledges that “it’s hard to know how to review an Adam Sandler film — or if it’s even worth it.” After all, she notes, the first Grown Ups movie was dissed by nearly all critics “and then went on to earn hundreds of millions worldwide.” She concludes: “What is there to say? You know what you’re going to get, and that is, indeed, what Sandler delivers. It’s juvenile, it’s obvious and it’s crass. But with Sandler at the helm, at least it’s as easy to like as it is to forget.”