Movie review: Just Go With It

Oh, how I miss the days when the worst thing you could say about an Adam Sandler comedy was that it was stupid or not funny. "Just Go With It," Sandler's newest film, is that and something much worse—a truly repugnant and mean-spirited movie that's easily the worst film of the year so far.

It's a movie about horrible people doing a horrible thing that's played for laughs, which are both slow to come and wholly unearned. Sandler and Jennifer Aniston have both been in some pretty horrendous movies, so it's saying something that this is a new low for both.

As is often the case when Sandler is in the spotlight, anti-Semitic caricatures abound. Sandler, who is himself Jewish, plays Dr. Danny Maccabee, a plastic surgeon. In a ghastly flashback scene that serves as the film's prologue, Danny overhears his fiancee scheming with and her comically big-nosed, squawking, gold-digging, and otherwise stereotypically Jewish pals. Perhaps channeling Woody Allen, Danny sticks to Gentile women for the rest of the film.

This sets up the movie's rather convoluted premise: the engagement breakup inspires Danny to make a practice of wearing a wedding ring in order to hit on women. If you think you remember George Costanza doing the exact same thing on "Seinfeld," you're right: it's one of two classic Costanza plots that "Just Go With It" brazenly copies.

After Danny hooks up with a comely young teacher named Palmer (Sports Illustrated "Swimsuit Issue" mainstay Brooklyn Decker), she finds the ring. Rather than tell her the truth, he comes up with a convoluted web of lies about being on the verge of divorce. Danny asks his assistant (Aniston) to pose as his soon-to-be-ex-wife and to present her children as his own. Then they take the whole farce on vacation for the second half of the movie.

So here's what's happening: Palmer, in addition to being beautiful, is the only decent person in the entire movie. She's rewarded for this by being the victim of an elaborate conspiracy on the part of five people—two of whom are small children—to misrepresent her boyfriend. Worse, the film's ending sells her out in the worst way imaginable.

That's what's truly troubling about this movie: its premise is almost unbelievably heartless and cruel, and the filmmakers seem to celebrate this.

Sandler has a long record of playing idiots, dweebs, and rageaholics, but at least his characters are usually fundamentally decent men who are worth rooting for. This time, he's playing a womanizing sleaze—one who thinks nothing of involving children in an elaborate deception. This character is meant to be our hero.

Aniston is more likable, although the usual trick of making her look "frumpy"and "mousy" in the early scenes isn't fooling anyone. Nick Swardson is a very talented stand-up comic, but he embarrasses himself as Danny's sidekick, and not for the first time, either. Nicole Kidman does some interesting things with a small part as a long-ago nemesis of Aniston's character, although the irony of Kidman's presence in a movie filled with bad plastic surgery jokes is much funnier than anything she actually does on screen.

The two kids have some funny moments, but I felt sorry for most of the supporting cast, including Kevin Nealon and Rachel Dratch as plastic surgery victims. The movie seems to think plastic surgery is hilarious in and of itself, along with "fat girl" jokes and similarly base gags. Dave Matthews, of all people, shows up as Kidman's husband, a man who "invented the iPod"—which is strange, given that his name isn't "Steve Jobs."

"Just Go With It" has a a surprisingly legitimate pedigree—it's based on the 1960s Walter Mattheu/Goldie Hawn comedy "Cactus Flower," which in turn was based on a French play. But what I'm guessing worked as "door-slamming farce" in French is dark, unfunny and downright insulting here. It made me long for the days when Sandler spoke in funny voices and occasionally got kicked in the groin.

"Just Go With It"

Directed by: Dennis Dugan

Starring: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Brooklyn Decker, Nick Swardson, Nicole Kidman, Dave Matthews

Rated: PG-13

Length: 1 hour 50 minutes

Rating: 0 stars (out of 5)

Playing at:

Regal Cinemas Oaks Stadium 24

1:40pm, 2:10pm, 4:20pm, 4:55pm, 7:10pm, 9:50pm, 10:35pm

Carmike Coventry 8

7:10pm, 9:50pm