"Blended" (The Guardian 23/05/14)

Blended *

Dir: Frank Coraci. With: Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Wendi McLendon-Covey. 117 mins. Cert: 12A

Hopes were high for this reunion of those behind 1998’s enduring The Wedding Singer, but it proves very much un film de Sandler: so lazy you feel unconscionably guilty for snorting at the three jokes in its two hours that merit any response. Getting bickering single parents Sandler and Drew Barrymore to South Africa requires contrivances so grinding they momentarily obscure all the sniggering about lesbians. The rest treats the locals with the expected sensitivity, while paying moist-eyed tribute to an ideal of “blended” families undermined by singularly charmless child performers. As for the scene in which Sandler rides an ostrich: has humanity learnt nothing from the career of Bernie Clifton?

Blended opens in cinemas nationwide today.