Plot[edit]
Three years after the events of the first film, Lenny Feder has relocated his family back to his Connecticut hometown where he and his friends grew up.
In the film's opening in the Feder household, Lenny wakes up to find a wild deer standing next to his bed. Upon waking up, his wife Roxanne startles the deer, causing it to urinate all over their home. Eventually, Lenny is able to get the deer out of the house just in time to take his children Greg,Keith , and Becky to their last day of school. Roxanne brings up the idea of their family having another baby, but Lenny says their family is perfect as is, upsetting Roxanne.
At the Lamonsoff household, Eric Lamonsoff and his wife Sally are at odds with each other over how to raise their children- Sally believes in unwavering support while Eric prefers to be more practical with them. At the McKenzie household, Kurt surprises his wife Deanne with a thoughtful anniversary present, only to find that she has completely forgotten. Meanwhile, Marcus Higgins is waiting at a train station after receiving a letter from an old girlfriend, who tells him that he has a seventeen-year-old son Braden. Marcus is stunned to see a tattooed, six-foot-tall boy, who turns out to be Braden. Marcus tries to be nice and takes him to school, but Braden shows an immediate dislike toward him.
After dropping off their kids, Lenny, Eric, Kurt, and Marcus spend the day roaming around town, reminiscing about the amazing summers they used to have when they were kids and Lenny's childhood bully, Tommy Cavanaugh. Lenny argues that he could take Tommy as a kid and he can still take him. Eventually, the friends go to see Becky's ballet recital, where Lenny runs into Tommy, whom Lenny is visibly terrified of. Tommy threatens that if Lenny ever lies again about being able to beat him up, he'll publicly beat Lenny up.
Once the kids are out of school, Lenny, Eric, Kurt, and Marcus decide to visit the old quarry, where they used to swim as kids. There they run into a bunch of partying frat boys who force them to jump into the quarry naked. Braden who was partying with the frat boys, witnesses this and goes off to vandalize their frat house. When the frat boys return, they swear to take revenge.
Lenny arrives home to help Roxanne set up for a 1980s-themed party for their friends. Meanwhile, Marcus begins to bond with Braden, who realizes he was wrong about his father. As all of their friends begin to arrive, Roxanne urges Lenny to consider having another baby. Lenny continues to protest the idea and is left dumbfounded when Roxanne reveals that she is pregnant. Lenny, feeling overwhelmed by this discovery, goes off to drink with his friends. The Feder's party goes well most of the night until Tommy Cavanaugh shows up and disrespects Lenny in front of everyone, so Lenny challenges Tommy to a fight. In a surprising turn, Tommy decides to take a dive so that Lenny can look tough for his kids, and the two develop a mutual respect. Soon after, the angry frat boys arrive at the house looking for retribution for the damage to their frat house. They go on to insult the local town residents, inciting a fight. The locals hold their own against the frat boys and eventually send them running away defeated.
After all the commotion dies down, the four friends have pancakes at Eric's mom's house. Mrs. Lamonsoff reassures Lenny that a new baby is a wonderful thing and eventually he will never be able to imagine life with just three kids (and also mentions that Eric was an accidental baby because they were in the bathroom at a New England Patriots game). Lenny has a change of heart and returns home, telling Roxanne he is sorry and excited about the new baby, and they reconcile.
Production[edit]
Filming of Grown Ups 2 began on June 2, 2012, in Massachusetts, United States and ended on August 15, 2012.[4] 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.[5] The film was released on July 12, 2013 in the United States. It was released on August 9, 2013 in the United Kingdom.[6]
The film is the first film sequel that Adam Sandler has starred in. The movie also has a role played by WWE hall of famer "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.[7] Stand-up comedian Chris Hardwick confirmed a cameo as an ice cream vendor via his Facebook page.[8] Additionally, the film features a cameo appearance by sportscaster Michael Kay and includesShaquille O'Neal as a cop.[9] On July 10, 2012, it was announced Arnold Schwarzenegger's son, Patrick, would be appearing as one of the frat brothers.[10] Oliver Cooper was offered a role as one of the fraternity brothers but had to back out due to scheduling conflicts.[11] The first trailer for the film was released on April 2, 2013.[12]
Release[edit]
Critical response[edit]
Like the first film, Grown Ups 2 has been heavily panned by critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 7% approval rating with an average rating of 2.6/10 based on 95 reviews.[13] The consensus states: "While it's 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."[14] Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigned a normalized rating based on 27 reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 19/100, indicating "overwhelming dislike".[15] Time named it the worst movie of 2013.[16]
John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a negative review, saying "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."[17] Andrew Barker of Variety said that "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."[18] 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."[19] 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."[20] 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."[21]
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 nasty jokes about pee, poo and -- with surprising frequency -- gay panic."[22] A rare positive review came from Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, who gave the film a B, saying "In certain ways, Grown Ups 2 marks a return to classically Sandlerian infantile anarchy."[23] 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."[24] 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."[25] 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."[26] 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."[27]
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."[28] 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."[29] 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."[30] 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."[31]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."[32]
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."[33]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."[34] 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."[35] Alonso Duralde of The Wrap gave the film a negative review, saying "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."[36] 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."[37]
