'Just Go With It'

'Just Go With It' (PG-13) (1 star)

Writers: Allan Loeb and Timothy Dowling
Director: Dennis Dugan
Starring: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Brooklyn Decker, Bailee Madison,
Nick Swardson, Rachel Dratch, Kevin Nealon, Nicole Kidman, Dave Matthews

You know you are in deep trouble when you are watching an Adam Sandler movie and you miss Rob Schneider. When Rob decides your movie isn't good enough for him to be in I think you have hit rock bottom. I really do love Adam Sandler and I have liked movies of his that critics hate (Grown Ups)and that regular movie goers hate (You Don't Mess With the Zohan). I can't defend Sandler this time with his latest embarrassment and this is coming from the man who even liked "Little Nicky" though I don't get "The Waterboy". I pretty much think Sandler is critic proof but putting criticism aside this is a stupid, unfunny comedy. I hope I am not alone in this but I actually got uncomfortable watching this. Adam Sandler plays a plastic surgeon who is best friends with his assistant played by an uncomfortable looking Jennifer Aniston. Sandler's thing is to wear a wedding ring and pretend that he is married but going through a divorce. He finds that women are attracted to this and he gets some good one night stands out of it. Things get complicated when he finds a much younger woman that he likes. She finds the ring and he comes up with a story that he is going through a divorce. To make her believe this he enlists his assistant and friend to pretend that she is his soon to be ex wife. If you can figure out by now how this movie will end please don't go see it.

Adam Sandler movies can be dumb but he is very likable and some of his movies are dumb in a smart way. Here Sandler is a jerk, the others around him are clueless and Sandler movies can be original but this one is recycled "Three's Company". I believe I am right in thinking that Sandler will have to disown this disaster, he is too smart. The only laughs I found that were truly good laughs were in the first 15 minutes. The scenes belong to Rachel Dratch and Kevin Nealon as patients of Sandler and they are great sight gags. When the story kicks in it begins on an implausible note and that is not the reason I don't like the movie. I swear as the movie lumbers along the jokes get worse, the movie gets more painful and finally the movie becomes a mess. The movie is actually stolen by little Bailee Madison who plays Aniston's daughter. Aniston's kids start to pretend that Sandler is their Dad and Bailee has some funny scenes as she tries to fake a British accent. The other jokes here you have seen before in a Sandler movie but these seem like his rejected jokes. There are a lot of sex jokes and again a (PG-13) movie is real close to a (R) again. I really like Jennifer Aniston and she is funny, charming and beautiful. In this movie she looks like she is lost, her chemistry with Sandler is good but the story kills that chemistry after a while.

The young female that Sander likes is played by model Brooklyn Decker and she is attractive (actually Aniston is much more beautiful) but her character has to be one of the dumbest women I have ever seen depicted on a movie screen. There is no possible way she could have believed all the lies that Sandler gives her. Sandler and Aniston's delivery of their lies are so awkward that anyone would have called them on it right away. This is one of those movies were everyone is an idiot and situations come up like they do in a really bad sitcom. I wouldn't mind all of this if the movie was funny. As the film moves along some of the most jaw dropping and really bad comedy I have seen in any movie in the past ten years develops. There is a scene where Sandler's friend has to give mouth to mouth to an obviously fake looking sheep (don't ask). Another numbingly bad scene comes about through a sub plot that involves Nicole Kidman. I have never seen a big time actress get involved with one of the weirdest, most embarrassing scenes ever given to an actress. Kidman has a Hawaiian dance off with Aniston that leads to dumber and weirder jokes that made my jaw drop. I have seen some very weird, uncomfortable comedy in movies but this was pathetic. "Just Go With It" is a train wreck and if this movie didn't have Sandler in it, meaning it will probably be a monster hit, it would kill Jennifer Aniston's movie career.

P.S. Nicole Kidman not only looks embarrassed in this movie but she looks terrible. She has admitted to taking Botox and not liking it and I have defended her before form critics who have been blasting her but she looks scary in this movie. I kind of feel guilty for laughing that Kidman looks so plastic in this when the movie deals with a plastic surgeon. Yikes!