So, given your choice of watching children’s toys act like adults or real adults act like children, what would you pick?
Most Americans went with the playthings this week, pushing Toy Story 3 to the top of the weekend’s movie charts again with $59 million, according to Box Office Mojo. The Adam Sandler-helmed Grown Ups, in which a group of childhood pals reunite for a long (looooong) weekend, scored $41 million to finish second, and Tom Cruise’s spy-caper Knight and Day made $20.5 million for third.
Toy Story 3 has already made more than $226 million in less than two weeks, which means that four of the year’s top five films (Alice in Wonderland, Shrek Forever After and How to Train Your Dragon are the others) were specifically made for families and rated G or PG. Pretty interesting.
In a bizarre sort of way, the PG-13-rated Grown Ups was scrambling to be about family, too. Sandler and most of his childhood buddies are family men now, and we see through the course of the film how much their spouses and children mean to them. I walked away from the film strangely encouraged.
Not that Grown Ups’ sweeter-than-expected heart made the film any better, either artistically or content-wise. The whole film often felt like an excuse to wedge several funny folks (the cast includes Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade and Rob Schneider) onto the screen at the same time in the hopes that something mildly amusing might happen along the way.
It doesn’t. Instead, the cast simply fire off a series of put-downs and sexual entendres at each other, making the whole film feel, at times, like an HR instructional video on bullying than a clever comedy.
But enough of my grousing. Any of you see Grown Ups? Or did you visit Toy Story 3? What did you think?
Recent Comments