Geekscape Movie Review: Just Go With It
On Valentine’s Day weekend, 1998 Adam Sandler made his Rom-Com debut with the Wedding Singer costarring Drew Barrymore. Valentine’s Day weekend 2004, Sandler re-teamed with Barrymore in 50 First Dates, a love story about an amnesiac and a perpetual womanizer afraid of commitment finding each other against the back drop of Hawaii. Fast forward another 7 years and this Valentine’s weekend we have Just Go With It, another Adam Sandler romantic comedy releasing about a commitment-phobe finding the one, set against the backdrop of Hawaii. I think I’m starting to see a pattern.
This time out Sandler plays Danny, a 40 something plastic surgeon afraid of commitment and using the guise of a fake bad marriage to lure unsuspecting coeds into bed with him. The only woman he maintains an honest relationship with is his assistant Katherine, played by Jennifer Aniston. One evening Sandler’s doc manages to catch the attention of a girl named Palmer, Brooklyn Decker who’s both charming and incredibly hot in her film debut,and manages to hit it off without the use of a fake wedding ring.
The next morning when Palmer does find the ring, she believes she’s slept with a married man. Instead of coming clean, like a normal person, Dan decides the best way to get out of the situation and keep the girl he genuinely likes, is to tell her he is in the midst of a divorce that is almost finalized. This plan actually starts to go well until Palmer decides she wants to meet the soon to be ex to make sure that it is indeed okay for her to be dating Danny. Aniston’s Katy is roped into filling in as the soon to be ex and hilarity ensues. No I’m serious. For once hilarity actually ensues.
Through a series of random misunderstandings, Katherine’s kids are revealed to Palmer who now believes Danny to be a daddy. This all somehow leads to them going on a group vacation to Hawaii, where the rest of the movie takes place.
The movie is surprisingly funny. I haven’t seen Sandler this on his game since 50 First Dates. That’s probably because he’s playing essentially the same character from 50 First Dates, but I’ll give him some credit, it’s a role he does well. I was considerably shocked as to how hard I was laughing.
That said, it’s funny in spite of some big flaws.
Like most of the Happy Madison movies, Sandler made sure to have at least a minor role or cameo for all of his friends. This leads to a fairly over bloated cast. From Kevin Nealon as a plastic surgery addict (creepier than it is funny) to Nick Swardson as Danny’s best friend, you feel like you’ve seen all of these characters before. For whatever reason, Heidi Montag even shows up in a cameo as the surgery addicts girlfriend, okay never mind, I just now realized why that’s a humorous bit of casting. Touche casting director. Nick Swardson is in the film as Danny’s best friend Eddie, and unfortunately he manages to be rather grating in his performance. He has hilarious moments, but the character on the whole is an extra piece of fat the film could have done without.
Jennifer Aniston may be the first actress I’ve seen on screen with Adam Sandler where I actually believe they have chemistry. She’s funny in the film without stealing the show, and she does an excellent job playing a single mother who puts everyone else ahead of herself. Jennifer Aniston does surprisingly well in a support role, and while technically she’s the female lead, she’s very much not the focus, and she ends up being better for it. By the end of the film you feel like you discovered someone who was on the sidelines the same way Danny does.
The inclusion of Aniston’s kids in the film makes for a few funny moments, and are a great point of showing that Sandler’s Danny is really a decent person. He’s actually better with the kids than Anyone in the movie, which I guess is the point, but unlike Bedtime Stories, Sandler isn’t forcing it and making his interactions with the kids over the top.
The biggest problem this movie has is a very specific suspension of disbelief the writers expect from you. The relationship between Palmer and Danny is fast tracked quicker than any relationship I’ve ever seen in a film. They sleep together the night they meet, that’s believable, but for some reason they begin acting as if Palmer and Danny are a couple after one night. They never go on a date at any point in this movie. It goes meet, sex, fight, lunch with fake ex wife to prove fake divorce, lunch with fake kids to introduce kids to new girlfriend (you have yet to take on a date), go on a group vacation to Hawaii (where you spend surprisingly little time with your girlfriend), get engaged to girl you have yet to go on date with.
Danny and Katherine have a very compelling arc that has more to do with Katherine realizing she can trust Danny than any attraction, and it’s handled carefully and well, but Danny’s relationship with Brooklyn Decker’s Palmer is a given that we are expected to swallow if we hope for the film to work.
There is also a glaringly awful performance from Nicole Kidman as Katherine’s one-time sorority rival Devlin. She and Dave Matthews play the most grating couple in the known universe. The only thing worse than adding an annoying character to a film is adding a completely unnecessary annoying character, and these characters are completely unnecessary to the plot of the film.
The movie plays like a much funnier version of Ben Stiller’s, The Heartbreak Kid, but has the opposite problems. Where Heartbreak Kid has a solid story with little to laugh at, Just Go With It has plenty of laughs, but no story past its concept for the jokes to compliment.
If you just want to lose yourself in something silly this Valentine weekend, go for it, but do not go in expecting anything better than the movies funniest jokes.
