Adam Sandler movies are like baby showers, colonoscopies and Celine Dion concerts. Sitting through any of them is pure torture.
Maybe it was the cabin fever we’d been experiencing prior to the screening, or somebody slipped a roofie into our Junior Mints because we actually somewhat enjoyed Sandler’s latest flick with Jennifer Aniston, Just Go With It. Far from original, far from great, it’s got enough to make it worth a matinee. Or a sappy Valentine’s weekend movie outing.
Quite frankly, we’re getting a little nervous that we’re starting to almost like all these rom-coms. Probably what we need is a good slasher movie to cleanse our palate before we die of a sugar overdose.
Or perhaps it’s our disdain for Sandler movies (and Ferrell flicks, too) as a general principle that made this one seem slightly better by comparison. This flick starts out like many of his previous ones with plenty of low-brow humor and bodily function jokes. But you know what? Some of them are actually pretty funny, especially the extreme makeover disasters he encounters as a plastic surgeon and at one wonderfully cliché Hollywood party. Rachel Dratch, one of our personal faves, has a priceless cameo as a patient whose facelift has gone horribly wrong in the hands of a lesser skilled strip-mall surgeon.
The movie’s grand gimmick is that Sandler’s doc gets laid more when women think he’s in a bad marriage versus being single. When the love of his life finds his wedding ring after a roll in the sand, she’s understandably disgusted. So he tells her he’s days away from finalizing his divorce. When she demands to meet the soon-to-be ex, he convinces office assistant Aniston to play the part.
When the action shifts to Hawaii for the sake of an exotic locale and an excuse for an hour-long Hilton Hotel commercial, the lies get bigger and bigger. Soon, Aniston’s character begins her own set of lies to save face with her college sorority nemesis, also in Hawaii, played by Nicole Kidman in her funniest performance since the holiday laugh riot, The Rabbit Hole. And damned if she and Aniston don’t make fortysomething look super sexy.
Eventually, there’s the requisite romantic happy ending, but along the way there’s enough irreverent humor to keep even skeptics like us entertained for almost two hours. We’re pretty sure that us liking this movie is yet one more sign of the apocalypse.
What’s next for us? A “Sarah Palin 2012” bumper sticker? An “I HEART Nancy Grace” T-shirt? A “Utah Is For Same-Sex Lovers” trucker’s cap?
We’re headed down a very slippery slope. God help us all.
Just Go With It opens today in theaters everywhere
www.justgowithit-movie.com/
