After getting his heart broken 20 years ago on his wedding day, Danny Maccabee (Adam Sandler) lures women by pretending to be in an unhappy marriage. Danny suddenly finds himself in a bind when he meets and falls for Palmer (Brooklyn Decker). Palmer, a grade school teacher, is unwilling to move their relationship forward until she meets Danny’s ex-wife. Afraid of losing Palmer, Danny convinces his office manager Katherine (Jennifer Aniston), to play the role of his ex-wife for a few hours. Unfortunately for Danny, he soon finds himself on vacation in Hawaii with both Palmer and Katherine and a lie that continues to spiral out of control with each passing day.
Adam Sandler has made a career out of taking simple premises and turning them into outlandish comedies, Just Go with It is no exception. The title seems to perfectly sum up his expectations of the audience with each passing comedy. However, instead of hoping for the audience to “buy in”, maybe Sandler should start living up to his part of the bargain rather than resting on his past successes, which he seems to have been doing for close to a decade now. The problem with Just Go with It is that most of the elaborate situations are rather avoidable. The film takes a roundabout way of getting to a conclusion which was obvious from the very beginning. Worst of all, the film is just not that funny. Even with comedic talents of Sander and Jennifer Aniston it rarely hits the comedic beats it should. The most amusing moment in the film revolves around the brief subplot involving Nicole Kidman and musician Dave Matthews, who play husband and wife in the film.
The scenes are silly but they do highlight one of the glaring problems with the film and that is the casting. I am all for eye candy like any other red blooded male, and Decker and Aniston deliver this in spades, but there needs to be more to a character than “she looks hot in a bikini”. There is nothing about Decker’s performance as Palmer that would make you believe any man would go to the lengths that Sandler’s character does. I would have rather seen Kidman in the Palmer role and vice versa. Decker simply does not have the acting chops yet to develop her character into something more memorable. Just Go with It wants to be both a romantic comedy and an over-the-top Sandler knee slapper. Unfortunately the film fails on both counts as it cares more about trying to force comedic situations out of its silly concept than it does about telling a genuinely funny story.
