HOLLYWOOD-Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler have great chemistry with one another. Their comedy “The Wedding Singer” was a bonafide hit when it was released nearly 16 years ago, and “50 First Dates” was another flick that audiences have continued to talk about. Unfortunately, their new film “Blended” falters on more fronts than what one may suspect.

The movie focuses on Jim (Sandler) and Lauren (Barrymore) who have a disastrous first date, and later find themselves forced to get along with one another after getting stuck at a resort for families. Over time like any romantic comedy, the obstacles that stand in the way of the lovers slowly disappear and they unite happily ever after.

 

In “Blended,” the laughs leading up to the climax, just are not as funny as one hoped. Those glory days where Adam Sandler remained the king of comedy are long gone in my opinion, its almost like he’s trying a bit too hard to be funny and it comes across forced and unauthentic. The entire time I’m watching this movie, I’m thinking to myself, “These two characters do not belong together, no matter how much the movie wants us to think so.”

 

That chemistry that Barrymore and Sandler exhibited in previous flicks they worked on just doesn’t ignite here. It could be the setting for the movie, a weak script that attempts too much to be funny, without naturally being ‘funny’ or the boatload of characters that just continue to appear throughout.

 

The comedy has a boatload of stars in the movie including Terry Crews, Joel McHale, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Kevin Nealon, but that could be one of the problems the picture faces also. There are just way too many people featured in this movie to amply develop the characters the way the script intended to. Not enough focus is placed on Sandler and Barrymore’s characters in my opinion. “Blended” is a movie that aims to be a comedy, but makes all the mistakes that a bad comedy tends to make.

 

Being funny is not supposed to be hard; it’s supposed to be natural. This movie does not give the audience what it expects, which leaves for an upset moviegoer in my opinion. If it’s chuckles you want you might find yourself taking a long nap watching “Blended.”