Screened Out – Blended

[two-star-rating]Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Joel McHale, Name, Kevin Nealon, Jessica Lowe, Shaquille O’Neal[/two-star-rating]

It’s not really blended; it’s more like disparate chunks of stupid humor and real emotion cobbled together. Adam Sandler and his production company, Happy Madison, apparently never worry about pesky things like tonal inconsistency.

So, if the plot accidently runs across a serious moment, filmmakers don’t let the audience feel anything for too long. They throw in a fart joke or a pratfall to break up the tension of witnessing an honest human experience.

Barrymore and Sandler are single parents due to death and divorce. They go on a disastrous blind date and decide they hate each other’s guts. However, through some very confusing machinations, they both end up in Africa on spring break. They and their five kids now have to share a huge suite at a fancy resort, sit at the same table at meals, run into each other repeatedly at planned events, and pretend that they’re a family.

Of course, because so much of this film is clichéd, the resort also hosts a lovey couple (Nealon, Lowe) who are going to make Sandler and Barrymore feel incredibly uncomfortable. There are also half-baked subplots for each of the five kids. This apparently requires that some obvious, Three Stooges-like acting awkwardly combined with tender moments about childhood grief and loneliness.

Maybe we should’ve known it’d be erratic; Shaquille O’Neal is in the cast.

Why does this uneven story happen in Africa? Maybe because the filmmakers thought Africa would be interesting. If that’s the case, it’s a shame none of the resort employees are represented as three-dimensional or realistic; they’re only there to make us laugh (until we realize that this approach may be slightly reductive of the entire continent…I’ll leave that nagging suspicion with you).

Still, the scenery is beautiful and a couple of the quieter bits of humor and pathos are actually nice. It was just frustrating to constantly have juvenile gags cutting everything off.

Barrymore and Sandler have worked together twice before this, on The Wedding Singer (1998) and 50 First Dates (2004). Both of those films had something going for them, although their end product was still unbalanced. The Wedding Singer had a tongue-in-cheek throwback to 80s style that was popular at that period (Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion, 1997). There was a certain goofy charm to 50 First Dates, despite its taking a rare mental incapacity and mining it for humor; one could see that as either clever or crass.

[rating-key]

Overall, Adam Sandler and his production company, Happy Madison, also have a wildly inconsistent track record with audiences. It’s confusing why a film like Grown-Ups 2 makes nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, horrible Jack and Jill makes $150 million, and That’s My Boy bombs, making only three-quarters of its investment back.

Blended makes an attempt at some real emotional connection. However, any honesty is constantly interrupted by that puerile shtick Sandler can’t seem to avoid. So, Blended didn’t…well… blend.