Just Go With It
Zach Davis




Directed By: Dennis Dugan

Starring: Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, Dan Patrick, Brooklyn Decker, Dave Matthews, Nick Swardson, and Nicole Kidman


With any good romantic comedy, character is key; and while Just Go With It offers up little in terms of depth, it keeps to Sandler’s comedic strengths of goofy sight gags and situational absurdity.

Danny (Adam Sandler) overhears the true feelings of his bride to be and walks away from the wedding.  Naturally, he heads straight to a bar.  While drowning his sorrows, Danny discovers that women don’t see him as an unwanted suitor because he's still got his wedding ring.  Still heartbroken, Danny applies this newly learned method to picking up women, and turns into something of a playboy over the next few years.  This continues until he meets Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), a hot woman with whom he shares a real connection.  Interestingly enough, Danny doesn't even use the wedding ring to pick up Palmer, but when she finds the ring the following morning, Danny quickly begins to build his web of lies.

Danny tells Palmer that he was married and is in the process of a divorce.  Naturally, Palmer wants to meet his ex-wife.  Danny then enlists the help of his dental assistant Katherine (Jennifer Aniston) to play the part of his ex-wife.  While in the middle of trying to pull off this charade Katherine takes a call which makes it apparent that she and Danny, according to the lie, have children.  Now the movie really takes off as Katherine’s children (Griffin Gluck and Bailee Madison) get dragged onto the scene and add to the chaos.  Katherine’s son Michael, or Bart as he is named by Danny, decides to take advantage of the situation by blackmailing Danny into taking the whole crew to Hawaii to allow Michael to swim with dolphins.  Now Danny, Katherine, and the kids have to keep up the charade with the help of Danny’s cousin Eddie (Nick Swardson) who pretends to be Dolph, Katherine’s new love interest.

There is a very identifiable humor that comes with any Adam Sandler movie, and it is present here in Just Go With It.  However, this humor is lighter relative to his raunchier films and remains family friendly.  Though Sandler and Aniston play their parts well, they fall into the trap of providing the romantic side of the movie but not the laughs often enough.  The bulk of the comedy came from the supporting cast of the kids, Swardson, Nicole Kidman, and Dave Mathews--all of whom did a good job at creating situations that will make you crack a smile.

While the laughs do come, there is very little originality offered in this movie, making it a great viewing as long as you have some beer or wine.  I give Just Go With It a 0.06% rating as a few drinks are needed to see past some common creative flaws.