NEW Reviews cover movie reviews of new releases of the same year in theaters or newly out on DVD. There may or may not be any spoiler below, but you have been forewarned!
NEW Review
“Just Go With It” (2011)
Aside from Adam Sandler’s animated movie “8 Crazy Nights” I’m pretty sure I’ve seen, to some extent all of Sandler’s starring movie roles. (Just checked IMDB and I’ve seen everything accepted for the above mentioned “8 Crazy Nights”, “Spanglish” and “Punch-Drunk Love”…I’m honestly impressed with myself). I’ve enjoyed a bunch of them, some I’ve really laughed hard at, and some that have been less then anything remotely stellar. I’ve always thought that Adam Sandler movies are an acquired taste, one that you may or may not always be in the mood for.
A lot of the movies where Sandler has odd voices really have deterred me from truly enjoying the movie. I know, it is really meant to be part of the character, but I was never a real fan of “Billy Madison”, “The Waterboy”, and the (in my opinion) god-awful “Little Nicky” (how some people swore by that movie back in the day, I’ll never know. But I’ve always enjoyed the movies that places Sandler, as himself, as the main character of the movie; like: “The Wedding Singer”, “Happy Gilmore”, “Big Daddy”, “Click” and I even liked “50 First Dates” (I didn’t know why people bashed that movie). But I have to say that he has been really giving us an array of comedies recently, from the terrible “Funny People” to the bizarre “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan” to last year’s Grown Ups (which Melissa and I saw while in Jamaica from a few weeks ago. We only caught it half way through but enjoyed what we saw and would love to catch the rest on Netflix). But I have to say that his most recent film, in which he stars with Jennifer Aniston, “Just Go With It” is one of the funniest Sandler movies I’ve seen.
Maybe it is my low expectations on movies in general recently, but I wasn’t expecting to laugh as hard as Melissa and I did last week when this came in from Netflix. That last sentence wasn’t meant as a knock on Sandler or any of his movies, it was really the truth. I have such low expectations for a film truly being something of quality that when I actually see something that surprises me, I really need to express my shock (and awe) that Hollywood was actually able to make something new and fresh. And make me laugh…and as hard as I did.
“Just Go With It” is about Danny Maccabe (Sandler) who was cheated on right before his wedding years ago and left his would-be bride at the alter. While at the bar, drinking away his problems, he left his wedding ring on and found that he was able to get girls with it. Fast forward to today and he meets the girl of his dreams in Palmer (Brooklyn Decker). Palmer finds Danny’s fake wedding ring and instead of telling her the ridiculous truth he lies to her and tells her he is getting divorced. This leads to Palmer wanting to meet Danny’s wife, and he enlists in his assistant Katherine (Aniston). And let’s just say that’s where the movie really starts to pick up.
Also starring, Nick Swardson (who can be seen in “Click” and the recently reviewed “Grandma’s Boy”–Retro Review: Grandma’s Boy), Nicole Kidman and Dave Matthews. I was really surprised to see Kidman and Matthews in this movie, but they played their parts great. The regular Sandler crew, such as: Allen Covert, Peter Dante, Kevin Nealon and Jonathan Loughran all return in various roles, some that you’ll have to squint your eyes to find.
The interactions between Sandler, Aniston, and Swardson are comedic gold when they are together on screen especially with the young actors picked to play Aniston’s two children (Bailee Madison and Griffin Gluck) who bring such a fresh and hilarious twist to kids in a Sandler movie. I don’t want to ruin the movie, but this was a very well written acted comedy. I’m pretty sure the majority of the funniest moments were improved.
After dealing with some of Adam Sandler’s mediocre films as of late, I’m truly surprised that this movie came out in early February and that they didn’t wait until summer to release this. Check this out, either on On Demand or Netflix. I wish they had some bloopers on the DVD that I got from Netflix, but they don’t treat us subscribers to those types of special features anymore. Really a shame too, the studios felt they were loosing money by allowing the entire contents of the DVD to be shown to rental customers; so they decided to create a rental DVD that only has the movie (or a very limited amount of special features) thinking that people would opt out of renting and go straight to buying. If anyone is like me, I’d much rather see what the DVD is before putting my precious money down on the counter to buy (I’ve been burnt way too many times by bad DVDs).
I was just thinking that these reviews tend to not have actual titles but the name of the movie. If I had to give this one a title, I think it would be “Low Expectations Leads to Huge Laugh on Latest Sandler Movie”. Go check this one out as soon as possible.
Let me know what you think, leave comments!