Grown Ups 2

Grown Ups 2 is a 2013 American comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, written by Adam Sandler, Fred Wolf, and Tim Herlihy, and produced by Sandler and Jack Giarraputo. It is a sequel to the 2010 film Grown Ups and stars Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, Maria Bello, and Nick Swardson. It follows Lenny, who moves his family to his old hometown. While spending time with his old friends, he and his companions must soon face bizarre situations and new enemies.
Produced by Sandler's production company Happy Madison Productions and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing through its Columbia Pictures label, Grown Ups 2 was released on July 12, 2013, to overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics. The film grossed $247 million on an $80 million budget. It was nominated for nine Razzies at the 2014 Golden Raspberry Awards.
Plot
In 2013, three years after the events of the first film, Lenny Feder relocated his family to his hometown of Stanton, where his friends Eric Lamonsoff, Kurt McKenzie, and Marcus Higgins live. Lenny wakes up to find a deer in his bedroom, which wreaks havoc through the house until he uses his daughter Becky's stuffed animal to lure it outside.
Lenny dismisses his wife Roxanne's suggestion that they have another child; Eric worries that his wife Sally is encouraging their children's self-confidence above all else; Kurt gives his wife Deanne a gift for their anniversary, which she has forgotten; and Marcus prepares to spend the summer with Braden, his unknown son, but is intimidated by the teenager, who deeply resents him.
Lenny commandeers his children's school bus from Nick, the unstable driver, and takes everyone to their last day of school. He picks up Kurt and Eric and visits K-Mart, where they are joined by Marcus, who has sent Braden to school. Kurt persuades Lenny to throw a party for the first day of summer, and the friends discuss Lenny's childhood bully, Tommy Cavanaugh. Police officers Fluzoo and Dante escort them to Becky's ballet recital at McDonough Elementary, where Lenny runs into Tommy, who openly threatens him.
As school ends, Kurt's daughter Charlotte agrees to go on a date, Lenny's younger son Keith struggles with his own bully Duffy, and Charlotte and Keith's older brothers Andre and Greg accompany Braden to an abandoned quarry, where they join a college party.
After humiliating their old rival Dickie at the Ice Cream House, Lenny, Eric, Kurt, and Marcus visit the same quarry, where they swam during their youth. There, they are confronted by a hostile college fraternity led by Milo and Andy, who force them to jump in naked from the highest point. Finding their fraternity house vandalized, the frat boys blame Lenny and his friends and swear revenge. Later, the friends take Marcus' van, vandalized by Braden, to Eric's auto body shop, and Marcus inadvertently rolls through town in a giant runaway construction tire.
Lenny learns that Keith is a gifted football kicker, but accidentally breaks his son's leg. Eric apologizes to Sally for avoiding her to spend time with his mother. Lenny becomes suspicious of Kyle's relationship with Roxanne, who is angered by her employee Penny's lifelong obsession with Lenny. Marcus bonds with Braden, Charlotte goes on her date, Andre passes his driving test overseen by Wiley, and Greg succeeds in asking out Nancy Arbuckle, a girl he has a crush on.
Roxanne tells Lenny that she is pregnant, and most of the town arrives for the Feders’ 1980s-themed party. Lenny realizes she is not having an affair with Kyle, who has repaired Becky's stuffed animal. He challenges Tommy to a fight, who takes a dive to allow Lenny to look tough in front of his bullied son.
Soon after, the fraternity crashes the party, looking for the culprit of the frat house vandalism, to which Braden admits. When the fraternity members insult the townsfolk, a massive brawl breaks out between them. The partygoers eventually defeat the fraternity, with Andy getting attacked by the deer, thanks to Becky's tactic with her stuffed animal.
Afterward friends Nick and Dickie enjoy a meal at Mrs. Lamonsoff's, reminiscing about their childhood together. Eric's mother reassures Lenny about his new baby, so he returns home to Roxanne and they reconcile, looking forward to their growing family.
Cast
The J. Geils Band members Peter Wolf, Seth Justman, Magic Dick, and Danny Klein as well as the group's known tour members Duke Levine and Tom Arey appear as the party band which is identified as Lenny's friends from the aforementioned group.
Production
Filming of Grown Ups 2 began on May 2, 2012, in Swampscott, Massachusetts, which portrayed the fictional town of Stanton, Connecticut, and ended on July 15, 2012. Some scenes were also filmed in Saugus, Massachusetts. Columbia Pictures and Happy Madison Productions distributed the film. The film was written by Adam Sandler, Fred Wolf and Tim Herlihy and directed by Dennis Dugan, Sandler's longtime collaborator. The film was released on July 12, 2013, in the United States. It was released on August 9, 2013, in the United Kingdom. Rob Schneider, who played Rob Hilliard in the first film, was unable to reprise his role, because of scheduling conflicts with Rob, and because his wife Patricia was pregnant during production.
This is the first film sequel that Adam Sandler has starred in. It also has a role played by WWE Hall of Famer Steve Austin. Stand-up comedian Chris Hardwick confirmed a cameo as an ice cream vendor via his Facebook page, but it was cut from the film. Additionally, the film features a cameo appearance by sportscaster Michael Kay and includes Shaquille O'Neal as a cop. On July 10, 2012, it was announced Arnold Schwarzenegger's son, Patrick, would be appearing as one of the frat brothers. Oliver Cooper was offered a role as one of the fraternity brothers but had to back out due to scheduling conflicts.
Release
The first trailer for the film was released on April 2, 2013. The film was released on July 12, 2013, in United States.
Grown Ups 2 was released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 5, 2013.
Reception
Box office
Grown Ups 2 grossed $133.7 million in North America and $113.4 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $247 million, against a budget of $80 million. It made a net profit of $48 million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues for the film.
In the U.S., the film earned $16.3 million on its opening day, Grown Ups 2 was released on July 12, 2013, alongside Pacific Rim. and opened to number two in its first weekend, with $41.5 million, behind Despicable Me 2. In its second weekend, the film dropped to number four, grossing $19.9 million. In its third and fourth weekends, the film made $11.6 million and $7.9 million, respectively.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval percentage of 8% based on 117 reviews and an average rating of 3.00 out of 10. The critics consensus states: "While it's almost certainly the movie event of the year for filmgoers passionate about deer urine humor, Grown Ups 2 will bore, annoy, and disgust audiences of nearly every other persuasion." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 19 out of 100 based on 28 critic reviews, indicating "overwhelming dislike". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter said, "Throughout, gags are cartoonishly broad and afforded so little time for setup and delivery we seem to be watching less a story than a catalog of tossed-out material." Andrew Barker of Variety said, "Among the slackest, laziest, least movie-like movies released by a major studio in the last decade, "Grown Ups 2" is perhaps the closest Hollywood has yet come to making "Ow, My Balls!" seem like a plausible future project." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film one out of four stars, saying, "The temptation arises to say something nice about "Grown Ups 2" just because it doesn't cause injury. But no, it's a bad movie, just old-school bad, the kind that's merely lousy and not an occasion for migraines or night sweats." Linda Barnard of the Toronto Star gave the film zero out of four stars, saying, "Adam Sandler scrapes the bottom of the barrel—and then he pukes into it—with Grown Ups 2, a lazily cribbed-together swamp of pointless and unfunny sketches that makes 2010’s Grown Ups look like Citizen Kane." Matt Patches of Time Out New York gave the film one out of five stars, saying, "In the first five minutes, a deer walks into the star's bedroom and urinates on his face. It's all downhill from there."
Rafer Guzman of Newsday gave the film one out of four stars, saying, "For all its warm and fuzzy notions of family and community, Grown Ups 2... has a desperate reliance on jokes about pee, poo and – with surprising frequency – gay panic." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, who gave the film a B, said, "In certain ways, Grown Ups 2 marks a return to classically Sandlerian infantile anarchy." Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times gave the film one and a half stars out of five, saying, "Grown Ups 2 looks like it was a lot of fun to make. And the last laugh is on us." Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave the film two out of five stars, saying, "Like most Adam Sandler movies, it’s exactly like most Adam Sandler movies... This movie stars all Sandler’s buddies and gleefully embraces lowbrow crudity even while promoting loving family values." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club gave the film a D−, saying, "Largely free of Sandler’s usual schmaltz and lame romance, it’s pure plotless, grotesque high jinks, bizarre and inept in a way that’s fascinating without ever being all that funny." Nick Schager of The Village Voice gave the film a negative review, saying "A few decent one-liners notwithstanding, the movie comes off as willfully uninspired."
Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film one star out of four, saying, "Mystifyingly, the movie manages to emerge plot-free. Instead, it offers a succession of humorless gross-out gags, fat jokes, suggestive posturing, bullying, belches and pratfalls. Life is simple – and gross – in Sandlerville." Sara Stewart of the New York Post gave the film half a star out of four, saying, "The movie lurches from one gross-out scene to another, flipping the bird at continuity and logic. It honestly seems as if Sandler and his team descended on a random suburb, halfheartedly improvising and moving on when they got bored." Stephanie Merry of The Washington Post gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying, "Grown Ups 2 isn’t merely mindless. At times it seems to actually drain IQ points from its viewers while wasting a talented cast of "Saturday Night Live" alums, who are all capable of being much smarter and so much funnier." Andy Webster of The New York Times gave the film one out of five stars, saying, "This is pap, plain and simple: scattered raunch-lite devoid of emotional resonance. At best, it sells itself on the spectacle of a TV show’s cast reunion—and even then it disappoints. With the debacles of That's My Boy and Jack and Jill, Mr. Sandler has increasingly squandered his comic capital. His onetime SNL brethren do themselves few favors—beyond a paycheck—by working in his orbit." Peter Keough of The Boston Globe gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying, "Apparently the world demanded another family-friendly version of The Hangover, one that combined scatological comedy with smarmy sentimentality."
Connie Ogle of the Miami Herald gave the film one out of four stars, saying, "Nobody escapes untainted by the foul stench of Grown Ups 2; it’s bad enough to make you look askance at Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, and Maya Rudolph, all of whom deserve a chance to do something funny other than pose as wives exuding various degrees of sexiness." Richard Roeper gave the film one and a half stars, saying, "When Taylor Lautner is the funniest thing in a movie starring Adam Sandler and Chris Rock, we're in trouble." Randy Cordova of The Arizona Republic gave the film one out of five stars, saying, "In its own way, "Grown Ups 2" sets the bar really high. After all, it’s hard to imagine another comedy coming along this year that is this abrasive and free of laughs. It’s like everyone involved intentionally tried to create a horrible movie." Alonso Duralde of The Wrap wrote, "Yes, it's time for another visit to the Adam Sandler Death-of-Cinema Fun Factory, the big-screen version of a terrible sitcom where laugh tracks are replaced by the co-stars chuckling at their own awful material." Adam Nayman of The Globe and Mail gave the film two out four stars, saying, "None of the stars are trying very hard, and so the most memorable presences are the cameos: If nothing else, Grown Ups 2 will go down as the only film in history to find room for Steve Buscemi alongside "Stone Cold" Steve Austin."
In 2014, comedians Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery watched the film every week for a full year for the first season of their podcast, The Worst Idea of All Time.
Accolades
Possible sequel
Maria Bello said in an interview, "People have talked about it and we've heard it might happen, but I don't know if there is a script, I don't know what there is. But I hope so because, boy, it's fun to work with those guys." In January 2020, comedian Tom Scharpling gained attention for uploading an unofficial and unaffiliated Grown Ups 3 script, written in April 2019, to Twitter.
References
External links
2013 films
2010s buddy comedy films
2010s comedy road movies
American buddy comedy films
American comedy road movies
American sequel films
2010s English-language films
Films about vacationing
Films set in Connecticut
Films set in 2011
Films shot in Massachusetts
Midlife crisis films
Happy Madison Productions films
Columbia Pictures films
Films scored by Rupert Gregson-Williams
Films directed by Dennis Dugan
Films produced by Adam Sandler
Films produced by Jack Giarraputo
Films with screenplays by Adam Sandler
Films with screenplays by Fred Wolf
Films with screenplays by Tim Herlihy
2013 comedy films
2010s American films
Film and television memes