Adam Sandler is at it again with over-the-top humor in “Just Go With It,” directed by Dennis Dugan. While the film is guaranteed to give you a belly cramp due to episodes of laughter from time to time, it will
Adam Sandler is at it again with over-the-top humor in “Just Go With It,” directed by Dennis Dugan. While the film is guaranteed to give you a belly cramp due to episodes of laughter from time to time, it will also leave you distracted and waiting for something more.
A spoof on the plastic surgery industry in Los Angeles, and an intended romantic comedy, “Just Go With It,” is a mixed bag of slapstick humor, contrived European accents and over-the-top craziness.
Sandler plays Dr. Danny Maccabeee, an unmarried LA plastic surgeon, who oddly enough, wears a wedding band to lure gullible women into dating him. He convinces his office assistant, Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) to pretend she is his soon-to-be ex-wife. It’s all part of a scheme to convince his new love interest, Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), he is telling the truth. More lies unfold and now Katherine’s children become involved.
Like hot-to-trot single women would actually be attracted to a not-so-attractive man wearing a wedding band whose wife supposedly beats him? It is clever yet not convincing. Let’s look at this from the angle of how the film delivers on comedy.
Admittedly, I was busting my gut laughing from time to time, especially during many of the film’s crazy plastic surgery mishaps. It is slapstick comedy, and things therefore happen that are completely unrealistic and sometimes painful to watch.
Seriously, if you haven’t seen an eyebrow floating in the middle of someone’s forehead or a frozen face leaving an over tanned, middle-aged man (Kevin Nealon) unable to feel his mouth while drinking a cocktail, it is pretty funny. Then, of course, is the opening scene with Sandler donning a humongous snout, and the list goes on.
However, Katherine and Dr. Maccabbee’s talk with Palmer about his sexual inadequacy and other graphic sexual innuendoes are overdone and distasteful. So is the redundant mention of Palmer being 15 years old.
I found myself drifting off trying to recall what was on my grocery list watching Maccabbee’s brother, Eddie (Nick Swardson) trying to resuscitate a dying sheep. It was embarrassing. Someone get this man back to standup comedy, pronto.
The children are hyper exaggerated sidekicks; one plays an overeager actress, and the other, a morose child who mourns his father’s disinterest in his life. While the realities of divorce brought the film down to earth with a theme many divorced women will relate to, the children’s talents were best when they were minus the overdone British accent and in a more natural state.
And, move over Decker, because Aniston was just as wowing as her younger counterpart in a bikini. It was fun seeing Aniston’s character transition from a homely yet attractive plastic surgeon’s office assistant into a stiletto heel wearing, confident bombshell.
Maccabbee takes Katherine on a huge shopping spree as part of the deal. Indeed, she was trying to help her boss untangle himself from the web of lies he told, and she was supposed to pretend to be a famous plastic surgeon’s wife. Move over homely, and hello hottie.
Aniston and Sandler did have a great chemistry that was fun to watch. Their characters’ eventual realization of romantic feelings
toward one another was sweet to witness.
When it came down to earth and dealt with more honest issues the film moved in an upward direction. Overall, it was enter-
taining, yet overdone and predictable.
