Directed by: Dennis Dugan
Starring: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Brooklyn Decker, Nicole Kidman, Dave Matthews, Nick Swardson
Watching the dreary Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston comedy Murder Mystery recently, it brings me back to their first onscreen encounter, 2011's Just Go with It, which has some nice scenery and the fortune of having three beautiful women in the cast, two of which sport bikinis at the right time. As if there is a wrong time for such a thing. The screwball plot doesn't do much for me, so I take pleasures where I can get them. I don't know if this is the first of Adam Sandler's movies to play like a Hawaii travelogue, but it isn't hard to notice that many Happy Madison productions don't mind taking the road trip to exotic locales. Not that it really helps the screenplay.
The plot is far more convoluted than it needs to be, but I'll describe it anyway. A Beverly Hills plastic surgeon named Dr. Danny (Sandler) is not married, but wears a wedding ring while picking up beautiful women he plans to bed and dump. The ring seems to be alluring to his conquests, but then a gorgeous blonde named Palmer (Decker) enters Danny's life. She may be The One, so much so that he takes off the wedding ring and plays it straight with her. But, alas, Palmer discovers Danny's wedding ring and asks if he is married. In a move which does little more than expand an already ludicrous contrivance, Danny says he is married, but about to divorce. Palmer wants to meet the ex, so Danny asks his long-suffering assistant Katherine (Aniston) to, get this, go to Hawaii with her two children and pose as Danny's future ex-wife so Palmer can meet her and keep the deception going so he can eventually marry her, I guess.
Danny's life, and ours, would have been simplified if he just admitted that he wasn't married, and then either tells the truth about why he has the wedding ring on hand or makes up a sentimental reason why he keeps it. Sure, those ways might not have led us to Hawaii or seeing Aniston and Decker in dueling bikinis, but Just Go with It could have wound up as a short film and less consuming of our time. I suppose I could've just gone with Just Go with It if it were funny or engaging, but it is neither. Add in two other inexplicable characters, including Danny's cousin (Swardson) who for some reason adopts a German accent and pretends to be Katherine's fiance. So I suppose in order to make Palmer feel better, Katherine has to be engaged herself. My mind boggles.
The other totally unnecessary character and subplot involves Devlin (Kidman), Katherine's high school enemy who winds up in Hawaii also just to continue their dumb feud. Sandler, Aniston, and Kidman are far too talented to appear in this silliness. Brooklyn Decker has also done well for herself in a key supporting role on Grace and Frankie. Just recapping about the plot is exhausting, I can't imagine how much energy was expended in writing it and performing it. Well, maybe not as much as I expect, because Just Go with It is a remake of 1969's Cactus Flower, which won Goldie Hawn an Oscar.
I will have to visit Cactus Flower and compare to this one. I sincerely hope the source material isn't nearly as dismal as its remake.
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