Just Go With It | Review
This is the umteenth collaboration between director Dennis Dugan and Adam Sandler. The two have previously collaborated on ‘I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry’, ‘You Don’t Mess With the Zohan’, and ‘Grown Ups’. ‘Just Go With It’ is pretty much the typical romantic-comedy Adam Sandler picture, though slightly more enjoyable and features more laughs than actually expected.
‘Just Go With It’ starts off with an ill-conceived, racist premise where Danny Maccabee (Sandler) is a Jewish guy with an un-funny, but meant to be funny, gigantic nose. On his wedding day, Danny’s heart is broken, leading Danny to a bar to drink his sorrows away. At the bar Danny meets a woman, played by ‘The Roommate’s’ Minka Kelly, who finds Danny attractive once she notices his wedding ring, which he forgot to remove. This one event influences Danny’s entire life, where he uses his wedding ring to seduce women and have lots of one-night-stands with no strings attached. With this kind of lifestyle, Danny can keep himself from ever having his heart broken again.
Of course, following the rules of romantic comedies, this kind of lifestyle will end once Danny meets the love of his life. When Danny meets Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), sparks fly, and he believes she’s “the one.” But when Palmer discovers his wedding band, Danny convinces her that he’s having a divorce, which leads to Palmer requesting to meet with the wife.
Danny is a successful plastic surgeon, and one of his closest friends, and also his employee/assistant, is Katherine Murphy (Jennifer Aniston). Katherine agrees to play the role of Danny’s wife, and soon enough, her two children are involved in the scheme. Maggie and Michael, Katherine’s children, pretend to be Danny’s children around Palmer.
Bailee Madison is adorable as Maggie Murphy, though her fake-accent joke gets old pretty fast. Griffin Gluck plays Michael Murphy, and scenes involving him are sometimes difficult to watch. Gluck is simply okay as Michael in some parts of the movie, but many times his scenes are not well-acted. Many times in the film it seems as if Gluck’s lines are filmed one at a time, given his new-comer status in acting.
Anyway, the entire family, including Palmer, end up going on a trip to Hawaii, and this is where the film starts getting better. The beautiful Hawaiian landscape and scenery add to the enjoyment of the film, and the characters have a lot of fun there, which allows the audience to have fun with them. In Hawaii, Katherine meets her old stuck-up frenemy, Devlin Adams (Nicole Kidman), forcing Katherine to pretend she’s happily married to Danny.
‘Just Go With It’ is fairly predictable. It’s obvious that the two friends pretending to be married to one another will soon actually fall in love with one another. However, seeing Danny and Katherine getting to this point is fun and enjoyable. Aniston and Sandler have a lot of fun with their characters, and they have wonderful chemistry.
I’m not necessarily giving ‘Just Go With It’ a good review; a 2.5-rating is essentially an “okay” rating. The film has its moments, and it’s enjoyable and offers quite a few fun surprises along the way. Seeing Aniston and Sandler’s characters slowly falling in love is fun to watch, and the children have many humorous scenes. The conclusion to the film is a nice one, and it neatly wraps up all the storylines, including one featuring Devlin. Though the film packs a lot of laughs, it also features just as many awkward and non-funny scenes that were meant to be funny, such as the jokes regarding Katherine’s nanny, Rose, or Danny’s two-time use of the panda joke. Also, the film features way too many fake accents for my tastes, with Maggie’s fake British accent and Eddie Simms’ (Danny’s cousin) fake Austrian accent.
‘Just Go With It’ is an above-average Adam Sandler flick. Like most of his films, Sandler portrays a douchey character who eventually becomes a good person by the end. I’m tired of Sandler playing the same character over and over again in his films. He needs to branch out more. I want him to go back to the days of ‘Mr. Deeds’, ‘Little Nicky’, and ‘The Waterboy’. Sandler needs to start being the best part of his movies. Jennifer Aniston is ultimately the best part of ‘Just Go With It’, with her down-to-Earth and winning personality.
Two and a half out of four Kents.
PS: The film features a random-as-hell scene when the main characters are shown walking to a Chuck-E-Cheese-like restaurant. It has nothing to do with the film at all, and the fact that it’s out of nowhere makes this scene hilarious.
