Better than Expected... Comparatively

Rating: 7/10 (11 February 2011)

Danny (Adam Sandler) is a plastic surgeon who's found that a fake wedding ring is his greatest weapon in picking up girls. Despite its success, he has caught the attention of Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) without it, and when she sees it she doesn't react like the other women. Lying, Danny tells her he's going through a divorce and to cover that end of the fib he coerces his assistant Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) into playing the part of his wife. The snowball effect gets into full swing and before long Danny finds himself vacationing in Hawaii with Palmer as well as his fake family complete with two kids. His biggest trouble may be in deciding if the charade he's keeping is actually the one he wants.
Just Go with It is a return to the typical Sandler vehicle, which it turns out is tragically dated and littered with blows to the crotch. The changup comes in Aniston being a more established foil than he's used to being paired, so some of her recent work shows through. You'd think that the combination of two over-exposed styles would clash, but they complement what the other is missing. Truth be told, having a sassy Aniston to knock Sandler down a peg works remarkably well. What isn't a good call is having to aim for the gross-out joke in the middle of some good dialog. So as you can image their job is going to put them in situations with body parts that aren't going to be shown in this PG-13 comedy. As likable as the Sandler-Aniston duo comes across, it's unfortunate that Just Go with It lives and dies by the supporting cast. On one hand Nicole Kidman and Dave Matthews hit a remarkable amount of laughs, and the former has a very large part in a film that doesn't show her for even a second in the promos. That's what I call a "pleasant surprise" and I wish other movies took note. The other end of the spectrum is visited with a combination of horrible child acting (possibly directing but more on this soon) and Nick Swardson. With the kids you get the sense that these children are suffering from the direction of Dennis Dugan who always makes the youth overly expressive. This time it troubles me more because the children have quite a bit of lines to grin through. With Maggie, a character supposedly taking up acting, she's never genuine. Michael similarly draws inspiration from performances for his role as Danny's son but instead is like a possessed cadaver. Finally Swardson is clearly aiming to be the most obnoxious actor ever. Not to get into too much detail over it, but there's nothing funny about it.
The outcome of the narrative is astoundingly conventional. This isn't a story that's going to challenge even a Facebook drone. Maybe I'm over analyzing, but the distasteful level of some of the scenes is so strong that I wonder if the intention is to test the tolerance of audience. Once you've sat through enough of it, you really do just go with it.
To say that Just Go with it was better than I expected is merely a comparative phrase. Did I expect it to suck? Yes. Indeed there is a great deal about it that puzzles me as to how Sony Pictures could have decided to release this to the public, but in some ways the cacophony of gags is effective because one is bound to hit you hard. I had belly laughs and that's not easy to coax from me.