Undemanding and enjoyable entertainment for older youngsters upwards

Rating: 8/10 (25 February 2011)

Danny (Adam Sandler)'s reaction to youthful rejection because of his big nose is a) rhinoplasty, b) a career in plastic surgery, and c) chronic promiscuity based on projecting a false impression of being abused by his (non-existent) wife. Then he meets hot teacher Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) and is ready to enter commitment: the only thing is that she wants to meet his wife. So Danny press gang's his practice assistant single mother Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) into pretending to be his wife, and then things start to get complicated.
I was ready to dislike this film - I'm not a big Adam Sandler fan, and Jennifer Aniston annoys me because she tends to take the easy road by playing essentially the same character in every movie. And there is an elephant in the room in this particular movie in that does Danny really expect to go through the rest of his life with a fictional ex-family? And yet I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. I saw it with a moderately sized audience including some youngsters (it is a certificate 12 in the UK - children can watch if accompanied by adults), and there was a great deal of laughter from all ages. There is no bad language and relatively little by way of sexual innuendo. Despite the fundamental improbability, the plot steamrollers on well enough, and with a number of mildly unexpected changes of direction (Nicole Kidman's arrival, to name but one). The humour is varied, with many of Sandler's one liners being amusing, and some effective slapstick. Bailee Madison (as Aniston's daughter) delivers a worse English accent than Dick van Dyke's infamous cockerney in Mary Poppins, and to better effect. All the characters are inherently likable - not always the case in Sandler's movies - and the denouement is satisfactory, if predictable.
Oh, and I have no complaint whatsoever about the wardrobe dept's choice of bikinis for the Ms's Kidman, Aniston and Becker.