Review: Blended

Adam Sandler plays a widower with three kids, Drew Barrymore is raising two sons on her own because her ex is Joel McHale. The two go on a super-awkward blind date at Hooters and it’s hate at first sight. However, they keep bumping into one another, and eventually contrivances not worth writing about end up with them both in South Africa at a resort for ‘blended families’. Subplots include Sandler’s eldest daughter (Bella Thorne) who is treated like a boy, and Barrymore’s youngest son who is prone to exhaustive temper tantrums. Wendi McLendon-Covey plays Barrymore’s friend, Terry Crews plays a bizarro African singer, Lauren Lapkus a babysitter, Allen Covert is Tom, Shaq turns up as Sandler’s co-worker, and Kevin Nealon plays an annoying resort guest.

 

After making his best film to date “Funny People” in 2009, Adam Sandler has seemingly defiantly eschewed any critical credibility by going back to his stock and trade of juvenile comedies of middling to (predominantly) abysmal results. Basically, he has lazily and stubbornly pissed his career away, because with each increasingly bad comedy, he loses more and more of his audience. He’s rich, so he gives no fucks what you or I think. Now he’s tried to recapture that magic by reuniting with Drew Barrymore one more time. Hey, it worked the first two times, especially the underrated “50 First Dates”. And y’know what? It mostly works with this surprisingly funny 2014 directed by Sandler crony Frank Coraci (“The Wedding Singer”, “The Waterboy”, “Click”). It’s by far his best film since “Funny People”, though it’s not hard to beat “Jack & Jill”, “That’s My Boy”, or “Just Go With It”. The annoying thing is he followed this one up with “The Cobbler”, a film so poorly received in the States that it went direct-to-DVD here in Australia, though apparently that one’s more of an ambitious failure than a tired comedy. I guess the damage had already been done by that point. Still, this one’s actually worth seeing, even if you’re not one of the few remaining Sandler faithful.

 

The first half is particularly good, I must say. I liked Sandler knowing all the waitresses names at Hooters, that was funny. It also establishes some sympathy early on for both Sandler and Barrymore. Sandler is actually genuinely likeable here for the first time since “Bedtime Stories”. Barrymore, as was the case in “The Wedding Singer” (where she and Jon Lovitz were the best things) is entirely huggable. She just seems so damn nice, doesn’t she? Charisma, folks. It can’t be taught. You also had a surprisingly loose and funny Shaq, and Joel McHale makes for the perfect sarcastic, insincere jerk. As well he should (Just sayin’, Joel…) Meanwhile, the running gag of Barrymore carrying her seemingly comatose son, post-baseball meltdown up the stairs when he’s way too big, surprisingly holds up OK the second and third times (whilst in South Africa) in addition to being hilarious the first time. Honestly, the opening 45 minutes is the funniest opener to a Sandler film ever, and the only reason why I’m not listing more of the gags is because I don’t want to spoil the fun for you.

 

Once we get to South Africa (which according to the filmmakers only has two white people), the film becomes a little too safe and sappy, but even then there’s still fun to be had. For instance, the requisite Allen Covert cameo (playing a familiar character) is amusing, and although it will go over the heads of Americans, the cameo by fearsome South African fast bowler Dale Steyn was pretty funny too. Seemingly nice off the pitch, Steyn’s a scary fucker with the ball. I’m not kidding, the guy looks like a real hard arse with the ball in hand. Meanwhile, if you don’t find the idea of a band of monkeys playing ‘Careless Whisper’ (yes, a band of actual monkeys) hysterically funny, you and I simply cannot hang, OK?

 

Look, not everything works. Terry Crews was brilliant on “Lip Sync Battle”, but his ‘African chorus’ (Or was he a South African Tom Jones?) is more strange than funny. The fact that Barrymore’s kids looked alarmingly like Sandler’s kids in the “Grown Ups” films was odd too. However, the real stinker was the running gag about Sandler’s eldest daughter. Actress Bella Thorne is a very pretty girl who doesn’t look remotely like a man, and thus the jokes make zero sense whatsoever, in addition to leading to the biggest movie cliché of all-time, the makeover scene! The makeover isn’t necessary, because anyone who thinks she has a boy’s haircut is a fucking moron. I just didn’t get that at all. It’s a lame subplot anyway, but whoever cast Thorne in the role should be given the “Old Yeller” treatment…or at least a pair of glasses.

 

Uneven, but this Adam Sandler comedy hits way more often than it misses, especially in the first half. Sandler and Barrymore prove a winning combination yet again. The screenplay is by Ivan Menchell and Clare Sera (both fairly new to cinema), it sometimes plays like “Just Go With It”…done right.

 

Rating: B-