2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for crude content, sexual candor and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang
A modest but fairly decent
romantic comedy lurks somewhere within the clumsy, bloated mess of this movie,
but it’s damn hard to find.
 |
| Years removed from the dating scene, Jim (Adam Sandler) sets up a blind date with Lauren (Drew Barrymore) at the local Hooters. First impressions aren't so hot; second impressions are even worse. So, naturally, these two will be seeing a lot more of each other. Because, otherwise, we wouldn't have a movie (not necessarily a bad thing). |
As often has been the case with
Adam Sandler’s recent films, the actor seems at war with his own conflicting
sensibilities: a perceived need to reward fans who expect the vulgar, gross-out
slapstick of his early career; and an honest desire to veer toward gentler,
family-friendly material.
The results can be awkward, to
say the least, as we’ve already seen in his two Grown Ups entries, each of which tried for aw-shucks, feel-good
moments that simply didn’t gel with the sexist, moronic “humor” targeted more
specifically at arrested adolescent males.
You’ll find the same unwieldy mix
in Blended, Sandler’s third — and
least satisfying — pairing with co-star Drew Barrymore. I can’t help wondering
if Sandler views Barrymore as his lucky token, given that their first
collaboration, 1998’s The Wedding Singer,
remains one of his most satisfying films. (Mind you, we’re still not talking
Shakespeare; a “superior” Sandler comedy doesn’t raise the bar very high.)
Their sophomore team-up — 2004’s 50 First Dates — wasn’t quite as
successful, but its virtues still overshadowed the coarse and tasteless
elements that by then had become a stronger part of Sandler’s oeuvre.
All of which brings us to Blended, which can be viewed as
something of a cinematic Hail Mary play, coming in the wake of gawdawful bombs
such as Jack and Jill and That’s My Boy. (Frankly, Sandler’s only
truly entertaining movie of late was HotelTransylvania, and it starred only his voice.) Unfortunately, Blended is yet another flick that
doesn’t know what it wants to be, when it grows up: a flaw directly attributed
to the haphazard script from Ivan Menchell and Clare Sera, making inept
big-screen writing debuts.
The results are all over the map,
and director Frank Coraci doesn’t help much. Although he helmed the
aforementioned Wedding Singer, more
recently he has been responsible for the numb-nuts Kevin James comedies Zookeeper and Here Comes the Boom. So let’s just say that Coraci’s tendencies
aren’t likely to support any of Sandler’s efforts to channel his kinder,
gentler self.
Single parents Jim (Sandler) and
Lauren (Barrymore) meet during a disastrous blind date. She’s divorced and well
rid of her useless ex; he’s widowed and still mourning his late wife. Jim
arranges the date at Hooters, where all the well-endowed cuties know his name.
(There’s a reason, of sorts, for this venue choice, but we don’t learn it for
awhile. And it’s not much of a reason, when we do learn it.) This scene involves a particularly disgusting close
encounter between Barrymore, some buffalo wings and a chaser of French onion
soup: a very bad sign of things to
come.
(As a quick sidebar, it seemed de rigueur, in the very recent past, for
vulgar comedies to include a scene featuring the perceived height of humor:
projectile defecation, usually with a diarrheic twist. More recently, we’ve
moved on to projectile vomiting or the generic spitting out of partially chewed
food. I’m not sure this is an improvement.
(But I digress...)
Despite an avowed desire never to
see each other again, Jim and Lauren somehow keep crossing paths. Then, under
circumstances so contrived as to defy description, they wind up “sharing” a
family-themed African safari vacation: Jim and his three daughters, Hilary
(Bella Thorne), Espn (Emma Fuhrmann) and Lou (Alyvia Alyn Lind); and Lauren and
her two sons, Brendan (Braxton Beckham) and Tyler (Kyle Red Silverstein).
An interesting observation, at
this juncture: Lauren’s sons are uncontrolled monsters, both young actors
encouraged to overact shamelessly by Coraci. Neither Brendan nor Tyler feels
the slightest bit real; they’re exaggerated, detestable, ADHD brats along the
lines of those found in the horrid “family comedies” unleashed by Disney in the
1970s.
Jim’s daughters, on the extreme
other hand, are compassionate girls with reasonable issues and credible behavior.
The jock-ish Hilary, raised for too long by only her father, chafes under
unflattering track suits and a Prince Valiant haircut, often mistaken for a boy
by boys she wishes would appraise her as a girl. Espn, unwilling to abandon the
memory of her mother, “talks” to her constantly and insists on setting a place
for her at the table.
Lou’s sole job is to be cute as a
bug, while serving as the bridge that eventually unites Jim and Lauren: a task
that the irrepressible Lind handles with aplomb.
So ... we like, adore and
sympathize with Jim’s daughters, while thoroughly detesting Lauren’s sons, and
wishing they’d both get lost — permanently — in the nearby veldt. This seems
... quite weird. What, did Barrymore draw the short straw?
Jim, Lauren and the kids share
their African resort escapades with newlyweds Eddy and Ginger (Kevin Nealon and
Jessica Lowe), this story’s token oversexed couple. Their dinner-table mating
rituals quickly grow tiresome, particularly to Eddy’s teenage son, Jake (Zak
Henri), who naturally is disgusted — as are we — by the way his father carries
on with a cleavage-enhanced cutie half his age.
Jake, obviously, has been
inserted to catch the insecure Hilary’s eye; she swoons immediately.
The subsequent story arcs are as
predictable as tomorrow’s sunrise, but that’s okay; the gradual thawing of
relations is far preferable to the stray bits of stupid slapstick that keep
getting in the way.
A few supporting characters are a
hoot, particularly the imposing Terry Crews, playing wildly against type as the
resort’s resident musical star: a sultry, crooning, hip-swaying lead singer
dubbed Nickens, who fronts a harmony group called Thathoo. Nickens and his
ensemble have a habit of popping up at the most unexpected moments, augmenting
a given scene with a hilarious a cappella twist. Crews is genuinely funny, and
his flamboyant character is one of this film’s great strengths.
Abdoulaye N’gom is another
standout, as the genial resort host. N’gom’s delivery is understated, his
features defiantly cheerful even when his daily agendas erupt into chaos.
Thorne also brings her A-game to
this third-string material, deftly conveying the anxieties of a young woman who
has begun to wonder if she even is a
woman. Hilary’s eventual ugly-duckling-to-swan transformation is a revelation:
a marvelous scene that this veteran young actress — working since she was 9
years old — handles with delightful assurance.
Sadly, Barrymore doesn’t deliver
near the same impact, when Lauren sheds her uptight tendencies and goes for her
own fashion makeover. Film students couldn’t ask for better contrast within the
same movie; Thorne’s easy grace simply magnifies Barrymore’s stiffness, in
near-identical scenes that hope to deliver the same va-va-voom.
Which is odd, because Barrymore
certainly is capable of selling such a moment. Ergo, we should blame Coraci.
This makes sense, because he’s an
impressively unskilled director, and not merely because of this film’s uneven
tone. At a butt-numbing 117 minutes, this flick is far too long and
self-indulgent. In part, this is because Menchell and Sera don’t know how to
conclude their story; a protracted and pointless fourth act staggers way beyond
the point the narrative should have
concluded.
But Coraci also contributes to
this problem, apparently having studied at the Monty Python School of Beating A
Joke To Death. If it’s funny once — as when Lauren, staggering under the weight
of a sleeping Tyler, keeps whacking the kid’s head against nearby walls and doorjambs
— then it’ll be funny two, three and four times. (Not.)
Then, too, Coraci too frequently
encourages his performers to shout and scream, even when inappropriate. This
smacks of insecurity; if the dialogue is genuinely funny, it’ll be funny at
normal volume ... and if it isn’t funny, shrieking ain’t gonna make it funny.
The biggest problem, though, is
that Sandler himself doesn’t seem sure, from one scene to the next, how to
behave in his own film. He too frequently wears the puzzled expression that Jim
displays during an unexpected meeting with Lauren’s ex (Joel McHale). So if
Sandler can’t be bothered to try harder, and Coraci can’t decide how to shade
his film, what are we to make of the results?
Not much, as it turns out. The
occasional charms notwithstanding, Blended
is a graceless mess that’ll disappear very quickly, once the summer onslaught
begins in a few weeks.
And it won’t be missed.
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