Movie review: ‘Grown Ups 2’ is awful

There are 162 million reasons for "Grown Ups 2" to have been made —
that's how many dollars the first "Grown Ups" took in back in 2010.
But there's no earthly reason for it to be made so awful.

This time, Hollywood agent Lenny Feder (Adam Sandler) and his
fashion-designer wife, Roxanne (Salma Hayek), have relocated their
family to Lenny's New England hometown. There, Lenny mostly hangs out
with pals Eric (Kevin James), Kurt (Chris Rock) and Higgins (David
Spade). Rob Schneider skipped this time and got the better end of the
deal. Each has a subplot: Higgins meets the son ("The Hunger Games' "
Alexander Ludwig) he didn't know he had, Lenny confronts his childhood
bully (wrestler Steve Austin), Eric deals with mommy issues and the
guys get razzed by some frat boys (led by Taylor Lautner).
But Sandler and his writing partners jump from one crude gag to the
next without a trace of a plot or narrative sense. This would be OK if
any of the jokes were remotely funny, but they're mostly retreads of
the bad jokes from the first movie.

For example, this time Shaquille O'Neal commits the peeing-in-the-pool
joke — and when a former NBA star is the funniest thing you can throw
on screen alongside a urinating elk and 15 current and former
"Saturday Night Live" cast members, your comedy has some major
problems.