TMG Scale 6.0
Starring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman
This film was pretty funny, so perhaps it deserves a better rating. TMG loves to laugh. But I really hated the tired old Adam Sandler potty humor. He needs to grow up and dump (pun intended) the references to his crotch and kid poop. It’s tired and only giggle humor for eight year olds.
Danny (Sandler) is an immature Hollywood plastic surgeon with a mature and thoughtful assistant named Katherine (Anniston). Danny’s game is that he finds that posing as a hen pecked or cheated on married man gets him picked up by the hottest babes in bars. [I have now checked with 167 married men. This does not work.] Finally, he meets a perfect ten of a school teacher named Palmer (Brooklyn Decker) without his fake marriage ring on. Palmer is half Sandler’s physical age but on par with his mental age. She finds the ring in his pants and threatens to drop him. Rather than admit the truth, Danny gets Katherine to engage in an elaborate ruse he is his wife but are getting divorced. Somehow this is better.
Katherine’s son hoodwinks Sandler into an Hawaiian vacation and everyone goes along. Keeping up the charade creates lots of ridiculous situations and slapstick comedy. They run into Katherine’s old sorority nemesis Devlin (Kidman) at the Hawaiian Hilton. The encounter makes no sense and Kidman made a bad choice for being anywhere near this film. The end of the road finds Danny realizing that the best woman for him might just be his loyal (and equally beautiful by the way) assistant Katherine. So the movie is redeemed slightly with a good fairly tale ending. Aniston gives a likable performance and Decker adds the Bo Derekesque eye candy. The real gem in this show is Katherine’s young daughter played by Bailee Madison. This kid has spunk and star quality written all over her. [Joy Lynn and I have an occasional young guest on our radio show named Sydney who could be Bailee’s twin…just in case any talent scouts are reading this. TMG gets 20%.] Bottom line: This is one of the dumbest movies I laughed most all the way through. I feel cheap to admit it.
But this is an Adam Sandler movie and you get pretty much what you expect. I like Adam Sandler and he is truly a funny guy. He and his characters just need to grow up a bit and get past the cheap, irreverent and permanent “jew boy” stuff and potty humor. He can be more funny without it.