Just Go With It (Review)

There are two different types of movies in this world: movies that are made for the audience, and movies that are made for the people who make them. The career of Adam Sandler, sadly, has mostly trafficked in the latter, and it seems to be getting even worse has he gets older. At least in his earlier work Sandler attempted to play reasonably unique, comic characters. Now, ever since Judd Apatow’s messy (but admirable) Funny People was able to strike a chord, Sandler seems to have given up completely. Just Go With It, the latest addition to the Adam “Who Cares?” Sandler pantheon, is essentially a studio-financed trip to Hawaii that happened to result in something resembling a film, which has now been released theatrically.

Sandler plays Danny, a plastic surgeon who walked out on his wedding back in the late ’80s when he had a huge nose, which makes it funny. He quickly finds out that his non-wedding ring is a chick magnet of sorts, which he uses for years when he goes out on the town. Many years later he meets a hot young woman named Palmer, a sixth grade math teacher played by fashion model Brooklyn Decker. That’s right; Brooklyn Decker plays a sixth grade math teacher. They immediately fall in love with each other, because of course they do: Decker is 23 years old and attractive, while Sandler is 44 years old and… Adam Sandler. The sad thing is that the romantic pairing of Sandler and Decker is the most logically sound point in the movie.

When Palmer accidently stumbles on Danny’s fake wedding ring, he tells her that he’s in the middle of getting divorced. Danny’s assistant Katherine, played by Jennifer Aniston, ends up being his fake soon-to-be-ex-wife. But wait! Katherine’s children end up getting involved, and soon they find themselves spinning a web of lies that they will never be able to get out of. Oh, the hilarity that will ensue!

One thing leads to another and they all end up going on a trip to Hawaii for no real reason that makes any sense. Oh, and they all go together. That’s right, within the world they’ve created, Danny is going on vacation with his girlfriend, his soon-to-be-ex-wife, his children, and his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s fake lover played by Nick Swardson. Once there, they get into all sorts of shenanigans, and they run into a couple played by Nicole Kidman and Dave Matthews. Their scenes are incredibly odd, as Kidman seems to want to run away as fast as possible, and Matthews actually seems like he could be quite funny in a better movie/role. They just don’t seem to belong in something like this. There might be a reason Kidman has hardly been in the ads.

Everything about Just Go With It seems thrown together and artificial. It finds a way to set itself in Hawaii and still not look particularly good, and on top of that it’s able to squeeze in a great deal of product placement. There’s a scene set in a Pizza Hut early in the film where Sandler talks to Aniston’s two children. I can live with a scene in a Pizza Hut. What I can’t live with is when the scene begins with a close-up of the Pizza Hut logo and then zooms out, revealing the surroundings. Also, the kids are drinking Pepsi. I know this because they have cans on the table that they pour into their cups. Does Pizza Hut serve their drinks in cans, or is it just that plain old glasses won’t make the Pepsi logo as conspicuous? Sandler movies have a long history of blatant product placement, but in this scene Just Go With It completely sold its soul.

This was all “directed” by Dennis Dugan, who has made many a Happy Madison production over the years, including last year’s Grown Ups. He has a very strange, awkward way of putting this movie together, barely able to make it seem like it was intended as a major theatrical release. There are a great many scenes of people walking in slow motion throughout, and most of them are set to remixes of Police songs, often mashed up with a more recent song for no real reason.

It should be said that Adam Sandler is, strictly speaking, a good actor. Even junk like this can’t completely hide his notable charm. The problem is that he seems to no longer have any interest in giving a good performance. I think that his terrific performance Funny People might have scared him. That movie depicted a lonely man who signed up for junk film after junk film and never felt satisfied. When Adam Sandler releases Just Go With It, do you honestly think he’s proud of his work?

However, if he knows it’s terrible, that’s almost worse. This would make Just Go With It a complete scam; an attempt to make the American public pay for a product that the filmmakers know is subpar. Everything about this film is a cash grab, and it seems no attempt was made to make an above-average piece of comedy. A couple weeks ago, Ivan Reitman’s No Strings Attached was released. While I did not like that movie one bit, I at least got the sense that the people involved were trying to make something worthwhile. They just failed. The sad thing about Just Go With It is that I fear it accomplished everything it set out to do. That just makes it all the more detestable.

Rating:  (out of 4)