Just Go With It is a romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler as plastic surgeon Danny Maccabee who wears a wedding ring to occasionally pick up women. He meets a girl (Brooklyn Decker) named Palmer who sleeps with him and ends up falling with him. Danny Maccabee convinces his assistant Katherine (Jennifer Anniston) to pose as his soon-to-be ex-wife and to convince Palmer that he is not an adulterer.
When I grade movies I like to break it down on 10 different variables for each movie type. The most a movie can receive is 10 points in each category so the best a movie can do is 100.
1. Originality: Now with romantic comedies, there is not a whole lot of room for originality. Before we watched the movie, I remarked that Adam Sandler is going to end up with Jennifer Anniston. Of course everyone accepts this going in. The fact that Sandler would wear a wedding ring to pick up women sounds like a Seinfeld plot. George wore a wedding ring to pick up women at an apartment party and of course it backfires although in a much better way, I thought. The fact that Sandler would continue the lie was pretty funny but overall not very original. Score: 7.
2. Humor: There was some laugh out loud moments in the movie. Overall, it was funnier than I thought it was going to be and it was full of traditional Sandler movie moments that I still find pretty funny. For a romantic comedy it was very funny but if it stands alone as a comedy it wasn't as funny. Score: 8.
3. Likability of protagonist: Part of a romantic comedy is that you have to want the main character to succeed. You have to root for the main character to get the girl in the end. Adam Sandler kept on lying to everyone and building various lies. He threw the girl onto the forest ground. He neglected the children emotionally including yelling at them after they had been crying for what seemed like hours. Of course all of this was forgiven because he taught the boy how to swim. Ummm....Score: 4.
4. Suspension of disbelief: In a movie like this, you would have to assume that most of the plot points are going to be pretty realistic because there was no alternate reality or anything like that. I thought there was many points to the movie that just didn't make too much sense. So much so, that it distracted me from the rest of the movie. I'll cover them briefly here.
A) Palmer was a teacher but could inexplicably take enought time off of work to go to Hawaii for a few days without any advance notice. School could have gotten out, except Dr. Maccabbee visited her while she was at work just days prior to the vacation.
B) Palmer accepting that Katherine was Dr. Maccabbee's ex-wife. This is really the crux of the issue. Katherine was introduced as a spoiled woman who was greedy, selfish, pill-popping, etc. This is not a huge deal except throughout the vacation to Hawaii she turns out to be nicer and nicer eventually turning into the exact replica of Katherine, the girl next door, instead of the spoiled rich doctor's wife that she was supposed to be playing. During the spa day, Palmer remarks that Katherine knows so much about Dr. Maccabbee, well of course she does she's his soon to be ex-wife! This is only a surprise if Palmer is not accepting that Katherine is his ex-wife. While Dr. Maccabbee is teaching the boy to swim, Michael is swimming and his sister is yelling his name out. This is not that big of a problem except Palmer shows up in the middle of this and hears this but the boy's name as she's been told is Bart. Soon after, Eddie pushes her into the pool because she is about to be introduced to the real Devlin.
C) Katherine is fine with Dr. Maccabbee banging Palmer throughout the vacation then just deciding that he is in love with Katherine.
D) The children start crying because their dad doesn't have time for them. Dr. Maccabbee is supposed to be their dad but instead of saying he (while pointing to Sandler's character) doesn't have time for us they go on about their dad.
E) Sandler's character has problems coming up with quick lies to Palmer despite the fact that he goes out every week lying about his wife while wearing his fake wedding ring.
F) He's paying $20,000 per night for his two suites at a hotel but he flinched at paying money for Michael to swim with dolphins.
Score: 1.
5. Acting: Sandler acts just like the rest of his characters. In fact, all of the actors are pretty typecasted into their roles. Score: 3.
6. Dialogue and/or other writing: I guess it was alright. There was no glaring holes in the dialogue or other writing. Score: 7.
7. General Plot: There was many holes in the plot, see above with suspension of disbelief, that coupled with a general lack of originality leaves something to be desired. Score: 6.
8. Expectations: I had pretty low expectations going into the movie. The movie exceeded those expectations but not by much. Score: 8.
9. Idea of the movie: The idea of the movie as far as I could tell was that you can lie at all times but if you're honest to one person that person is the one that you'll fall in love with. Or something like that. Score: 5.
10. Re-watchability: Chances that I will re-watch the movie on a scale of 1 to 10. This score is entirely subjective...well the rest of the ones are as well. Score: 3.
Total Score:52.
Not a great score but not the worst movie I've ever seen.
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