Blended is a sad attempt to capitalize on the good memories of Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore

It’s easy to wish to go back to the successes of the past, especially when they worked so well. Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore first starred together in the classic movie The Wedding Singer, which some people (myself included) consider his best movie. The pair had a lot of charisma and a very sweet love story in a silly but very funny movie.

The pair reunited in 50 First Dates, which suffers from a lot of Sandler’s worst tendencies of lowbrow humor, but actually had quite a touching resolution, if a bit unusual and slightly creepy. I liked both movies, although one is clearly superior to the other. But those movies are more about younger lovers and less mature times, so it’s not unreasonable to consider a film about two older people that still might connect. That said, no.

Blended is about Jim (Sandler) and Lauren (Barrymore), and how their terrible blind date ends up leading to a trip to the country of Africa! I’m not really joking about that, the name of any specific country in Africa is never mentioned, although the movie was actually filmed in a resort in South Africa. Jim is a widower with three daughters, a tomboyish older daughter (Bella Thorne), a middle child who seems to be hallucinating her dead mother, and a precocious moppet of a third child. This third child is used to engineer and contrive all manner of events over the course of the film. Lauren naturally has two boys, an older boy obsessed with his babysitter and a younger boy who’s into stunts and danger. Gee whiz, do you think that somehow Jim and Lauren will provide the perfect things the kids need and fall in love, only to have issues with contrivances?

And do you think the movie will rip off one of the scenes from The Wedding Singer and expect me not to notice? And what about great comedic actor Terry Crews (so great in Brooklyn Nine-Nine)? Will he not only be utterly wasted but actually embarrassed by a a turn as a singing and dancing African caricature? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Also, good news! There are only a few gross jokes, which is a quite a joke to me. That’s one of the few compliments I’ll pay this movie. I laughed a bit in the beginning, especially at Joel McHale as Lauren’s terrible ex-husband and Wendy McLendon-Covey as her nutty friend. But those two aren’t much in the movie. Instead the movie seems to be banking on our memories of past better movies.

I was actually uncomfortable by the sexualization of the older daughter character, which mixes honest attempts at addressing burgeoning teenage sexuality with incredibly inappropriate jokes from Sandler. There’s a lot male gaze too, although … although I did actually like one part of this movie a lot. A couple played by Kevin Nealon as an older man, and his much younger wife played by newcomer Jessica Lowe, had one of the most interesting relationships I’ve seen in films in a while. These two were painted as in a very healthy relationship, where both were clearly attracted to the other. It’s weird how the movie just doesn’t get how to do things sincerely. There are so many subplots that seem to want to approach a real idea, like the concept of modern, “blended” families, but instead things keep devolving into the most obvious of jokes and resolutions.

Instead of watching this one, go back and watch The Wedding Singer again, or even 50 First Dates. It’ll make you want to see this one, but you can avoid the temptation if you try, trust me.