Salma Hayek reprises the role of Adam Sandler’s wife.

Grown Ups 2 (2013)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 101 minutes
Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Starring: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Nick Swardson, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Jonathan Loughran, Jackie Sandler, Aly Michalka, Maria Bello, Taylor Lautner, Shaquille O’Neal
KRS release

Life in Los Angeles is no longer what Lenny (Adam Sandler) desires. He thus decides to move with his wife Roxanne (Salma Hayek) and three children (Cameron Boyce, Alexys Nicole Sanchez and Jake Goldberg) to his hometown.

Here he gets back in touch with his old classmates... and their families.

This includes Kurt (Chris Rock), who is a cable repairman, married with two children and facing a milieu of day-to-day trouble; Eric (Kevin James), who is also married with kids and is constantly coddling them; and Marcus (David Spade), who was and still is a slacker.

The group ends up clashing with a local fraternity made up of bullies. Lenny needs to deal with a bully from the past (Steve Austin) and a 1980s-style party that will close everything with a bang.

It looks like a home movie which comedians would do in their spare time

Grown Ups (2010) had been mauled by critics but it brought in a healthy $270 million at the box office. Cue three years later and the situation has repeated itself. The sequel has already cashed in over $150 million and this minus Rob Schneider who has not returned to the scene of the crime.

This second feature goes all out in its approach to toilet humour and the way it seems to let its cast do whatever they want on screen. In fact, it looks like a home movie these comedians would do in their spare time.

Sandler seems to want to have the cake and eat it, as here he brings together his buddies, adds in everyone he can from the

Saturday Night Live show and ropes in Taylor Lautner from Twilight and Hayek. Fans of Sandler’s second phase of comedy (Jack and Jill, That’s My Boy) will lap up this film, which happens to be also his first sequel.

I expected to see many of the Saturday Night Live cast members, considering that Sandler is like the head honcho/guru of this kind of comedy, but I cannot peg down how he managed to convince Hayek to be in this movie.

The film excels in its bit roles with the likes of Austin delivering a very nice, hammed-up version of his on-screen and wrestling persona, and his real self. Then there is Shaquille O’Neal who plays a policeman of a very different breed and who gives a whole sense of fun to the proceedings.

Though it pains me to say this, it is Lautner who steals the show in a performance in which he adopts a ridiculously over-the-top cocky attitude.

Grown Ups 2 starts and ends with a bathroom humour joke which will probably go down quite well with whoever enjoyed the first movie.

Overall, it also seems to be sending out the message that men, whatever happens, even if they are tagged to be grown ups, actually never do grow up!