film review: just go with it

Review by Taegen Joyce

Just Go With It, directed by Dennis Dugan, is predictable and a little long, but enjoyable for the most part.

Adam Sandler plays plastic surgeon Dr. Danny Maccabee on screen, and co-producer off screen. For 20 years Danny has been pretending to be unhappily married to an abusive wife in order to get lucky with the ladies.
But when he meets Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), a leggy, blonde math teacher at a beach party, his dejected husband role backfires. Danny tells Palmer he’s getting a ‘divorce’ but she insists she needs to hear it from his ‘wife,’ and a text message won’t do – Palmer’s no home-wrecker.

Enter Katherine, (Jennifer Aniston) a.k.a Devlin – Danny’s surgery assistant who he convinces to play the role of his fake wife. When Palmer and Katherine meet, Katherine perfectly depicts the uptight, demanding wife Danny describes her as. As they’re about to go their separate ways, Katherine receives a phone call and she accidentally reveals she has two kids, who get dragged into the fake marriage and become Danny’s kids too.

Palmer then insists she loves children so she needs to meet them as well. The kids agree to play the part of Katherine and Danny’s children, but being kids, they’ll only do it if they get whatever they request in return. The daughter Maggie (Bailee Madison) plays an annoyingly hilarious aspiring actress and the son Michael (Griffin Gluck), is just as aggravating as his sister.

At times it’s hard to imagine Palmer actually believes the ridiculous stories the ‘family’ come up with. One lie leads to another and suddenly they’re on a plane to Hawaii.

Tagging along is Eddie (Nick Swardson), Danny’s best friend as Katherine’s – a.k.a Devlin’s – fake boyfriend Dolph. His character is the funniest out of the lot, although there are plenty of moments when you want to knock him out cold.

While in Hawaii, Katherine runs into a long lost friend from high school, Devlin (Nicole Kidman) – the real Devlin.

Somewhere between the hula dance offs, humorous surgery mishaps, mud covered kids, ridiculous accents and a few romantic moments; it becomes fairly obvious what’s going to happen in the end.

Overall, Jennifer Aniston is impressive, even for non-fans, and Adam Sandler is charming and somewhat appealing in a role he knows like the back of his hand.

If you’re tossing up whether or not to make a trip to the movies to see this, just go with it – it’ll keep you entertained for two hours and it’s worth the cost of a ticket.