BEFORE: Eh, what's a birthday, anyway? Some arbitrary celebration of a day that happens to have the same numeration as the day I was born. Are we really celebrating the fact that the earth has returned to the same location in its orbit around the sun as it was in on the day we started to act as an independent being? If so, that's bullshit in a way because the earth never really goes back to the same spot, since the whole solar system's moving around the galaxy, and the galaxy's moving too so it seems like there's really nothing to celebrate. I think I'm at the age where I refuse to acknowledge that I'm getting a little older every day, as are we all, but it's just easier to deal with that information on one particular day, rather than fret about it a little all year long.
Adam Sandler carries over from "Grown Ups 2" to finish off his chain. I could have worked in "8 Crazy Nights", but we're nowhere near Hanukkah time (I think) and I'm going to go a different way to finish off the year.
THE PLOT: A lazy law school grad adopts a kid to impress his girlfriend, but everything doesn't go as planned and he becomes the unlikely foster father.
AFTER: This gets a higher rating from me than "Grown Ups 2" did, merely because it's ABOUT something - a man learns to be responsible through taking care of his roommate's son. Whereas "Grown Ups 2" isn't really about anything but stupid stunts, and it's just out to waste people's time.
There are at least a couple of OK gags here - I remember when McDonald's moved the cutoff for serving breakfast to be an hour earlier, and it threw a lot of people off. I'm one of those people that finds it tough to make it to breakfast before 10:30 am, so I feel the pain here. Still, I don't know the pleasure (?) of taking care of a child on a full-time basis, so there's just as much here that I can't really fathom.
It ends with a competency hearing, to determine if Sandler's character is worthy of being a parent. This might explain why they changed the ending of the "Mr. Deeds" remake, which was released three years after this film, because ending that one with a hearing would have seemed too similar.
Also starring Jon Stewart, Joey Lauren Adams (last seen in "Chasing Amy"), Rob Schneider (last seen in "Mr. Deeds"), Leslie Mann (last seen in "This Is 40"), Cole + Dylan Sprouse, Josh Mostel (last seen in "The Out-of-Towners"), Kristy Swanson, Steve Buscemi (also carrying over from "Grown Ups 2") Allen Covert (ditto), Peter Dante (ditto), Joseph Bologna (last seen in "My Favorite Year").
RATING: 4 out of 10 rollerbladers
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