You Probably Shouldn't '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 and unfunny.

"Just Go With It" 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 film about horrible people doing a horrible thing played for laughs that 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.

"Just Go With It" kicks off with a truly ghastly prologue that packs more anti-Semitic caricature into a few minutes than some Third Reich propaganda films. We see a flashback to Sandler's almost-wedding years earlier, during which he overhears his fiancee scheming with her comically big-nosed, squawking, gold-digging and otherwise-stereotypically Jewish pals. Perhaps channeling Woody Allen, Sandler sticks to gentile women for the rest of the film.

This horrific sequence reminded me of the two "black" robots in the second "Transformers" movie and more recently, that Groupon Super Bowl ad that appeared to trivialize the plight of the people of Tibet.

In all these instances you just have to ask how it's possible that it never occurred to anyone at any level of the decision-making that "wow, this is really, really horrible."

This sets up the film's rather convoluted premise: the engagement breakup inspires Sandler, now a plastic surgeon, to make practice of wearing a wedding ring in order to hit on women.

You may remember George doing the exact same thing on "Seinfeld." It's one of two classic Costanza plots that "Just Go With It" brazenly plagiarizes (in the other, a riff on the marine biologist episode, a dying sheep stands in for the beached whale.)

Anyway, after Sandler 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 an entire convoluted web of lies about being on the verge of divorce, in which Sandler's assistant (Aniston) poses as his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Her kids (Griffin Gluck and, I'm not kidding, "Bailee Madison") pretend to be his. Then they take the whole thing on vacation for the second half of the movie.

Palmer, in addition to being beautiful, is the only sweet and 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 – for her lover to misrepresent himself about who he is. And even worse, the ending sells her out in the worst way imaginable.

And that's what's truly troubling about this movie – its premise is almost unbelievably heartless and cruel and the filmmakers seem to have no idea that that's even a problem.

Sandler has a long record of playing idiots, dweebs, rageaholics and all of the above rolled into one, 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.

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 Sandler'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 mostly felt sorry for 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 other stuff on that level. And Dave Matthews, of all people, shows up as Kidman's husband, a man who "invented the iPod" – which is strange, considering 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; 1 hr. 50 min.

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