Grown Ups 2

Sandler's films have always been stupid, but the early stuff is pretty harmless; here the jokes almost always come at the expense of someone else, the kind of needless bullying one expects of a YouTube comment section.

[A] slothful, indulgent sequel that sees a once-great screen comedian hit self-inflicted Sandlergeddon.

Rob Schneider, the butt of many jokes in the first Grown-Ups, is nowhere to be seen. Salma Hayek, as Lenny's wife, looks understandably tense and irritable throughout.

Somehow, the word 'sequel' doesn't fit: it would be like describing three months of agonising spinal surgery as the sequel to falling off a cliff.

No human being possesses the imaginative power to sufficiently lower his or her expectations to anticipate the sheer laziness of this putrid ensemble comedy.

These movies are about four friends -- played by comedians -- remembering what it was like to be young. How much better for an audience would it be if they remembered what it was like to make comedy?

However, strip away the rare moments of humility and championing of small town life and you're left with what is simply a series of sexist and scatological vignettes...

This film incited more facepalms and head-shakes than laughs, and the script feels like something Sandler could have scribbled on the palm of his hand.

Grown Ups 2 won't please a good majority of the film critics, but it's not a film for the film critics.

It all ends rather politely with an 80s costume party, and rather worryingly with the possibility there might be a Grown Ups 3.