Brooklyn Decker does lots of slo-mo in “Just Go With It.” (©Columbia Pictures/courtesy Ever)
(©Columbia Pictures/courtesy Ever)
At 43, Nicole Kidman has never been funny before, and she isn’t funny playing an aging mean girl in “Just Go With It,” yet she does manage to surprise us in two ways. One is the eagerness with which this subtle and accomplished actress humiliates herself in an attempt to generate some mass-market popularity, which seems likely to elude her forever.
The other is that she generates as many laughs in this cinematic cranial drill as alleged comedian Adam Sandler, who delivers zero.
Sandler (who often does bad movies) and Jennifer Aniston (who pretty much only does bad movies) are an LA plastic surgeon and his assistant, whose laborious busted banter makes it clear from the beginning that we’re supposed to think they’re perfect for each other. Then nothing in particular keeps them hooking up for the rest of the movie, except a single dramatic turn — which occurs off screen.
PHOTOS
JENNIFER ANISTON’S LEADING MEN
Sandler’s Danny is a sleazy lothario who discovers that, though single, he can attract women by wearing a wedding ring. Minutes after meeting a busty blonde (Brooklyn Decker) — whose main purpose is to keep slinking toward the camera in slo-mo, some parts of her arriving considerably earlier than the remainder — Danny takes her on a moonlit stroll on the beach, then sleeps with her right there. She discovers a wedding ring in his pocket — what’s this?
Rather than tell the truth, he invents a wife (whom Aniston’s Katherine winds up playing) he supposedly is about to divorce. Also he invents kids (she, a divorcée, has two). So naturally Palmer (the hot young thing) wants to meet Katherine. And, um, go on vacation to Hawaii with her, Danny and the kids.
The kids are supremely annoying (the tweener girl keeps doing a fake Cockney accent) though not as fungally irritating as Danny’s sidekick cousin (Nick Swardson) who shows up uninvited to join the group for the trip playing her supposed new boyfriend, “Dolph Lundgren.”
This means Swardson doing many lengthy “riffs” involving a German accent, references to his working as a prostitute during which time he was forced to sell “my schnitzel” to the ladies, and an apparent fondness for the ancient shtick of Arte Johnson, who 40 years ago did a clueless comedy German on a variety show called “Laugh-In.”
Aniston, who has a gift for playing every dismal role the same bland, 8-pm-on-NBC way, and Sandler do not exactly make you frantic to dive into a copy of US Weekly to find out if they were really doing it on the set. Sandler treats her like a particularly bored audience at the Giggle Hut on a humid Monday night in San Antonio.
I haven’t even mentioned the boring plastic surgery gags (woman with grotesquely enlarged breast; woman with eyebrow halfway up her forehead), the many crotch-punches and face-plants, the way Decker’s acting suggests her only training in show business is to stand around at swimsuit shoots, the way the movie thinks any reference to excrement is brilliant.
Katherine’s code for doo-doo is “Devlin,” named for the frenemy in college who hid little insults in her small talk. Naturally, Devlin turns up at the same resort in Hawaii — and she’s Kidman.
You know you’re in trouble when you’re suffering a comedy shutout and the pinch-hitters you send in are Kidman and Dave Matthews (as her dim hubby). In a scene of crass exploitation, Kidman and Aniston do an endless hula dance-off in bikini top and grass skirts that culminates with the former holding a coconut between her chin and Matthews’ crotch — and then against his butt. We later learn that gay guys are really good at picking up coconuts with their butt cheeks, but only after we’re treated to a scene featuring a flamboyant, lisping hairdresser whose hands flap on their wrists.
I’m not saying gay men should be offended by “Just Go With It.” I’m saying everyone should be offended by the time-annihilating suckage of this mirth void. It’s as bad as showing up at the Super Bowl only to be told your tickets are no good. It’s as bad as being ordered to work all weekend to cover for your boss while he’s golfing in St. Bart’s. It’s as bad “Little Fockers.”
kyle.smith@nypost.com