About.com Rating

If you see a worse movie than Grown Ups 2 this year, you may want to give up on going to movies. You will have officially tunneled through the bottom of the barrel.

Adam Sandler and his friends reunite for another paid vacation they're calling a movie -- the sequel to 2010's Grown Ups, at that point the nadir of his less-than-stellar film career. Leave it to Sandler and his group of co-stars/buddies -- Kevin James, Chris Rock and David Spade -- to make a sequel that makes the original film look positively stately and ambitious.

Here is a movie so lazy it can't even be bothered to form a plot. It literally just follows a couple people around during their day. And guess what? Their lives aren't interesting.

Here are the big conflicts presented in Grown Ups 2: Sandler's gorgeous wife (Salma Hayek) wants to have another baby, but he already has three kids, millions of dollars and no work responsibilities. Why mess that up? Poor guy. Chris Rock's wife (Maya Rudolph) forgot their anniversary; luckily, he's happy about it because he can lord it over her head and drink non-diet soda for dinner (cue the Pepsi product placement). Spade has a kid he didn't know about that turns out to be a juvenile delinquent. Kevin James...I'm not sure. He still loves his mom? There's a scene where it's suggested that his wife (Maria Bello) neglects him, but a) there is no evidence of that and b) it's resolved in the same scene with two lines of dialogue. Maybe only one. Basically, everyone's lives are pretty much perfect. They barely work, the hang out all day, go shopping (cue the K-Mart product placement), have a party, go for ice cream.

None of it is funny. Curiously missing from the group this time around is Rob Schneider, whose character is never so much as mentioned.

I guess there are things that are supposed to be funny in the movie. There is "funny" dialogue, like when Sandler gets on a P.A. system and says "Attention K-Mart shoppers..." or when he calls someone "Magnum P.U." These are the jokes. Sometimes, the movie will give Nick Swardson's drugged-out bus driver/closeted homosexual free reign to spaz out and shamelessly mug; when that doesn't work, it finds a way to cause him bodily harm. Sometimes the jokes are about pee. Other times, they are about poo. One running joke involves a character sneezing, burping and farting at the same time. When all else fails, the movie just has the characters make fun of anyone who is different: people who are balding (though not Spade, despite the fact that he wears what has to be one of the worst wigs in movie history), a female body builder, a child who is overweight. For a film that's presumably about hanging out and having fun with your friends, Grown Ups 2 has a passive mean-spirited streak that runs through it. The unspoken message is that it's fun to hang out with your friends as long as one of those friends is Adam Sandler.

That the movie isn't funny is its biggest problem -- we can forgive a lot if we are laughing -- but not its only problem. It is badly shot and badly directed (by Sandler favorite Dennis Dugan). The characters keep saying that these men are great fathers, but they are constantly discovering things about their own children -- one knows how to sing, one can kick a football (he is rewarded by having his own father break his leg, another of the movie's big "jokes"), another is a piano prodigy. These men don't even know their own kids. What are they doing with all of this free time they have? And, of course, there is a lot of lingering on the female body: wives, college girls, cheerleaders, a dance teacher. Except for Maya Rudolph, every woman is a pinup or a stripper. I guess life really is great for this group of rich, entitled idiots.

Unless you are Adam Sandler, one of his friends or an eight-year old with little sense of humor, Grown Ups 2 doesn't like you. Grown Ups 2 isn't interested in your enjoyment. Grown Ups 2 is only interested in your money, and that's so there can be a Grown Ups 3. Someone has to subsidize Sandler's summer vacations.

• Grown Ups 2 is rated PG-13 for crude and suggestive content, language and some male rear nudity.
• Running Time: 101 minutes
• Release Date: July 12, 2013