| Grown Ups | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Dennis Dugan |
| Written by | |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Theo van de Sande |
| Edited by | Tom Costain |
| Music by | Rupert Gregson-Williams |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Sony Pictures Releasing |
Release date |
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Running time | 102 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $75 million[1] |
| Box office | $272.2 million[1] |
Grown Ups is a 2010 Americancomedy film directed byDennis Dugan, written byAdam Sandler andFred Wolf, produced by Sandler andJack Giarraputo, and starring Sandler,Kevin James,Chris Rock,David Spade, andRob Schneider, withSalma Hayek,Maria Bello, andMaya Rudolph in supporting roles. The film's plot tells the story of five lifelong friends who won their junior high school basketball championship in 1978. They reunite three decades later for a4th of July weekend after learning about the sudden death of their former coach.
Produced by Sandler'sHappy Madison Productions in association withRelativity Media,Grown Ups was released in the United States on June 25, 2010, byColumbia Pictures.[2] Despite receiving negative reviews from critics, it grossed $272.2 million and led to a sequel,Grown Ups 2, in 2013.
In 1978, childhood friends Lenny Feder, Eric Lamonsoff, Kurt McKenzie, Marcus Higgins, and Rob Hilliard win their junior high basketball championship. They celebrate at a lake house with their coach Robert "Buzzer" Ferdinando.
Thirty years later, in 2008, Lenny is a wealthy and successful Hollywood talent agent, married to fashion designer Roxanne, and has three children: Greg, Keith, and Becky. Eric claims to co-own a lawn furniture company and has two children: Donna and Bean; his wife Sally still breastfeeds Bean. Kurt is a stay-at-home father and has two children: Andre and Charlotte; his wife, Deanne, is pregnant with their third child, and her mother Ronzoni lives with them. Marcus is a slacker andlothario. Rob is married to his much older fourth wife, Gloria.
When Buzzer dies, the five friends reunite for his funeral in their hometown with their families. Lenny rents a lake house in the same town for everyone to stay overFourth of July weekend, though his family is leaving early to attend Roxanne's fashion show inMilan. He pushes his boys to play outside and runs into his childhood opponent Dickie, who claims Lenny's foot was out of bounds when he made the winning shot and has been obsessed with getting a rematch to rectify the perceived 'mistake'.
As the friends spread Buzzer's ashes, Rob breaks down over his failed marriages and reveals that he has invited his estranged daughters Jasmine, Amber, and Bridget to visit. The men play "arrow roulette", shooting an arrow straight into the air, and Rob wins by not running for cover, but the arrow impales his left foot, causing him to 'snap' at Gloria from the pain, who rushed to his aid with unconventional methods.
The next day, Lenny is thrilled to find the kids playing withcup-and-string telephones. Realizing the positive impact the weekend is having on their children, Roxanne tells Lenny to cancel their Milan trip and stay at the lake instead.
Everyone visitsWater Wizz where Marcus flirts with Jasmine and Amber after buying them skimpy bikinis, and Eric teaches Bean to drink cow's milk. The families cause chaos throughout the park: the wives attract a bodybuilder, then jeer at his high-pitched Canadian accent; Rob assaults a slide attendant when he insults Bridget, and Eric ignores Donna's warning about a chemical in the pool that turns urine blue. At the zipline attraction, Lenny's group meets up with Dickie, accompanied by his son, his former teammates, and his friend Wiley, who is then severely injured after crashing into a shed while sliding down the zipline using his feet.
The next day, Rob attacks Marcus, mistakenly believing that he slept with Jasmine, and Marcus admits to feeling insecure compared to his happily married friends. Everyone comes clean about the state of their lives: Roxanne confronts Lenny for canceling their flight to Milan before they left home, and he explains he wanted their family to have a normal vacation and to rein in his children's disrespectful attitudes; Deanne confronts Kurt for spending time with the Feders' nanny Rita, but Kurt retaliates by pointing out how she under-appreciates him; Eric reveals that he was laid off from his job, and was showing off the whole time so the others wouldn't humiliate him; Rob admits what everybody already knows – that he wears a toupee. Gloria helps everyone reconcile, and Lenny and Kurt offer to help Eric start a new business.
On their last day at the lake house, Lenny and his friends agree to do a rematch of basketball against Dickie, Robideaux, Muzby, Tardio, and Malcolm. The game culminates in Lenny and Greg facing Dickie and his son, but Lenny misses the game-deciding shot. As the families watch the Fourth of July fireworks, Lenny tells Roxanne that he let Dickie's family win to get him off his case and felt that his own family needed to know what losing feels like. A drunken Marcus plays another game of arrow roulette, and the crowd flees in panic. Trapped in afull-body cast, Wiley is struck in the foot by the arrow as he quotes that they beat them again before fainting.
Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade met when they all joined the cast ofSaturday Night Live in the1990–1991 season; supporting cast membersColin Quinn, Maya Rudolph,Tim Meadows, andNorm Macdonald have also beenSNL cast members. Before he died in 1997,Chris Farley was originally considered to be part of the film during its earliest conception.[3]
Filming commenced inEssex County, Massachusetts, in August 2009.[4]Chebacco Lake was used to portray the fictional Amoskeag Lake where the Earnshaw family's lake house setting was.[5]Woodman's of Essex was used for the restaurant "Woodman's Eat in the Rough".[6]Water Wizz was used as the filming location for the water park scene.[7][8]
Grown Ups grossed $162 million in the United States and $110.2 million in other territories for a worldwide gross of $272.2 million against a production budget of $75 million.[1]Grown Ups surpassedClick to become Sandler's highest-grossing film worldwide.[9] Happy with the gross, Adam Sandler showed his appreciation by buying brand-newMaseratisports cars for his four co-stars.[10]
OnRotten Tomatoes,Grown Ups has an approval percentage of 10% based on 169 reviews and an average rating of 3.40/10. The critics consensus reads: "Grown Ups' cast of comedy vets is amiable, but they're let down by flat direction and the scattershot, lowbrow humor of a stunted script."[11] OnMetacritic, the film has a score of 30 out of 100 based on 32 critic reviews, meaning "generally unfavorable".[12] Audiences polled byCinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[13]
Connie Ogle of theMiami Herald referred to it as "the perfect poster child for this maddening summer of movie mediocrity."[14] Rick Groen ofThe Globe and Mail criticized what he saw as blatant commercialism, saying the cast "lob[bed] gags they surely disdain at an audience they probably despise while reserving their own laughter for that off-camera dash all the way to the bank."Richard Roeper went as far as to say that it was "a blight upon the bright canvas of American cinema", and that he hated it.[15] Tom Long ofThe Detroit News called it "trite comedy" and "total garbage."[16] On the other end of the spectrum, Lisa Kennedy ofThe Denver Post called it "crude and decent-hearted" and "easy, breezy, predictable."[17]
Rob Schneider was nominated for aRazzie Award forWorst Supporting Actor for the film, but lost toJackson Rathbone for bothThe Last Airbender andThe Twilight Saga: Eclipse.[18]
The film won at the2011 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.[19]
Grown Ups was released onDVD andBlu-ray Disc on November 9, 2010, bySony Pictures Home Entertainment.
Songs featured in the film
Songs that appeared in the trailer:
A sequel, titledGrown 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 andSteve Buscemi reprised their roles, exceptRob Schneider. New cast includesAndy Samberg,Taylor Lautner andPatrick Schwarzenegger. The sequel follows Lenny Feder as he relocates his family back to the small town where he and his friends grew up.[20] Like its predecessor,Grown Ups 2 received very poor reviews[21] but was still a box office hit.[22]
Not many family-run businesses can say they've been featured in a Hollywood film, but Water Wizz has been in two major motion pictures in four years. The first wasGrown Ups, a 2010 movie produced by Adam Sandler.
