Does zilch to advance filmmaking as art, but succeeds as an entertaining crowd-pleaser. James’s schoolteacher fighting in UFC is the only well-developed narrative, as the screenplay saddles its high school students w/half-baked storylines filled w/lame platitudes & clichéd banalities. The love story barely makes an impact; Hayek has little screen time & little to do. Those issues aside, still a pleasing popcorn film.
Sandler’s motivations for making this film w/his best friends are easy to understand, “Let’s take a paid vacation…on the studio’s dime! We’ll rent a lakeside lodge! We’ll play at a waterpark! We’ll hire hot actresses to ogle! We’ll make up a script; we’ll just riff on each other’s ideas! We don’t even have to act; we’ll play ourselves!” Utterly worthless. But, to be fair, still not the worst Sandler film ever made.
One of the worst films of 2011, possibly one of the worst comedies ever filmed & this is in a world where Ishtar exists. The sort of film in which the entire humorless narrative hinges on characters choosing not to simply talk to each other, or the plot would’ve resolved itself in the first five minutes & the audience would realize there was no reason for this film to exist. Vaughn, Ryder & Connelly shame themselves.
