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Adam Sandler is one of Hollywood’s great enigmas. In my opinion, his decent movies are about as common as a competent driver from across the Causeway, yet he somehow manages to be counted amongst the industry’s elite.
His latest effort to roll out a film actually worthy of his top star billing falls flat on its face and is doomed from its inception. Blended is a tired film full of genre tropes that brings nothing fresh to the table.
The story begins with Lauren (Barrymore), divorced with two kids, and Jim (Sandler), widowed with three kids, meeting on a blind date. Lauren’s perfectionism and Jim’s carefree, clumsy attitude leads to a cocktail of disaster and a clash of personality.
After a ridiculous series of events that stretch plausibility to the extreme, the two end up bumping into each other again in a shop to buy awkward items for their kids.
The two buy each other’s items to save embarrassment and part ways. But, of course, (and it is at this point you might feel a sharp pain in your eye sockets from the involuntary rolling they’ll be doing), the shopkeeper mixes up their credit cards, so Jim goes to Lauren’s house to sort it out.
Through another series of unfortunate (read: convenient) events, both adults end up going on a trip to Africa, kids in tow. Neither wants to be in each other’s company, but they are forced to share a romantic suite while the youngsters get their own room.
The ‘blended familymoon’ (the movie’s words, not mine) leads to a variety of silly adventures, with the two leads realising that they might not be as different as it first appeared.
If you hadn’t clicked from reading this short summary, the plot is absolutely ludicrous. Most romantic comedies take liberties with believability, and often that’s what’s actually the source of most comedy. However, this movie makes you struggle to even laugh at it, never mind with it.
Most of it is too silly to be amusing, whilst the serious moments take themselves too seriously and completely disregard the genre and audience they’re trying to cater to.
The film lacks any consistency in tone. It presents a sequence of unabashed adolescent set pieces but then shoehorns in an ending comprised of false, gooey sentimentality. It’s completely at odds with the rest of the film and highlights the shocking direction that pervades the movie.
Setting the film in South Africa is also a bad joke on the writer’s part. We get no sense of what the country or its people are actually like, and if it wasn’t for the overly-amorous CGI rhinos few people would even realise the characters had travelled abroad.
Essentially, the movie falls down on two fronts. It doesn’t touch the heart and it doesn’t tickle the funny bone. Even bad romantic comedies usually enable the viewer to become invested in the central romance, but in Blended, we just don’t care. Furthermore, the humour fails to fill the void left where the plot should be.
If there’s a saving grace to the film, it’s the soundtrack. There are some great songs and they fit the scenes they are assigned to perfectly, even if the scenes themselves are dire. There are a couple of montages that are the only occasions in the movie where your cheekbones might twitch a little.
It’s also clear that Sandler and Barrymore have some innate chemistry. It’s such a shame and extremely frustrating that a woeful script and ridiculous plot contrivances never allows it to come to the forefront. With better direction and writing, this movie could have been something worthwhile.
Ultimately then, this is another failure to add to the pile of Sandler train wrecks that must be pushing the Burj Khalifa in the height stakes. When the bar is set so low, and this film still manages to squeeze under it, you know it must be avoided at all costs.
* Showing in Cineco, Seef I, Seef II, Saar Cineplex
