D: Frank Coraci / 117m

Cast: Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Kevin Nealon, Terry Crews, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Emma Fuhrmann, Bella Thorne, Braxton Beckham, Alyvia Alyn Lind, Joel McHale, Abdoulaye NGom, Kyle Red Silverstein, Zak Henri, Jessica Lowe

Widower Jim (Sandler) and divorcee Lauren (Barrymore) meet on a blind date that goes from bad to worse to disaster and leaves both of them never wanting to see each other again.  The holidays are coming up and both of them are looking to take their kids – Jim has three daughters: teenager Hilary (Thorne), Espn (Fuhrmann), and Lou (Lind), Lauren has two boys: Brendan (Beckham) and Tyler (Silverstein) – away, but neither set of children is looking forward to where they’re going.  When Jim and Lauren bump into each other at the store, their credit cards get mixed up.  Jim realises first and goes to Lauren’s house where Lauren’s friend Jen (McLendon-Covey) is freaking out because her boyfriend, Dick, wanted her to meet his children on a planned trip to Africa.  Having broken up with Dick because of this, the holiday is now available.  Lauren asks Jen if she can go in Jen’s place and take her boys, while Jim discovers Dick is his boss, and he asks Dick to sell the holiday to him.

When they all arrive at the resort in Africa, Jim and Lauren find they’re on a “blended familymoon”, and are surrounded by couples where one of the partners is a step-parent and the idea is to develop stronger ties with their step-children.  They meet Eddy (Nealon) and Ginger (Lowe), and Eddy’s teenage son, Jake (Henri).  Hilary has an instant crush on Jake, but because she looks like a boy she doesn’t think he’ll notice her.  The two families take part in the arranged activities and the children all learn to get on while Jim and Lauren continue to spar and bicker (even though they are clearly starting to like each other).  Lauren arranges for Hilary to have a makeover, and now Jake really does notice her.  With the holiday coming to an end, and with both Jim and Lauren having bonded with each other’s kids, Jim takes Lauren out for a romantic dinner but when they go to kiss, he backs off, unable to commit.

They all return home, and Jim begins to realise his mistake in not kissing Lauren.  He goes to see her but Lauren’s ex-husband, Mark (McHale), answers the door and makes it sound as if he and Lauren are getting back together.  Disheartened, Jim leaves, while Mark tries to persuade Lauren to have him back.  She won’t, but she tells him if he wants to make a good impression with his kids he should turn up for Tyler’s Little League baseball game at the weekend.  But on the day, it’s not Mark who turns up…

Going by the assumption, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, Blended is the obvious follow-on from Just Go With It (2011), swapping Hawaii for Africa, and Jennifer Aniston’s dental assistant for Drew Barrymore’s divorced closet organiser, but without the added (and unexpected) star power of Nicole Kidman.  It’s a safe move, and an even safer movie, with Sandler injecting just enough of his loud man-child persona, as well as the standard amount of risqué gags, to ensure Blended is a few steps away from the kind of bland family fare that Disney pumps out with frightening regularity.  It almost feels like a movie made by committee, comfortably ticking off the boxes on its way to the expected happy ending: couple who initially detest each other – check; kids with various problems that will be addressed and dealt with by the end – check; supporting characters who provide most of the goofy humour – check; family values firmly reinforced in time-honoured Brady Bunch fashion – check; and so on.

Love him or loathe him, Sandler has a loyal fan base, and his movies regularly make their money back at the box office – just don’t mention the dreadful That’s My Boy (2012) which couldn’t recoup its $70 million budget even with international sales – so he must be doing something right.  As here, he appears to make little effort in terms of acting, and he’s becoming less and less of a physical performer, but he generally makes good choices in terms of the movies he makes, as well as the people he surrounds himself with.  But it’s with movies like Blended that it really springs to mind he’s just coasting until the next, more interesting project (and 2015’s Pixels may just be that project).

With its predictable plotting, tiresome running gags, and by-the-numbers characterisations, Blended could almost be the cure for insomnia, but it does have some good one-liners – “I naturally assumed your husband shot himself” – and the South African locations are suitably impressive, but the direction is too pedestrian for the movie to take off as effectively as Barrymore does in the parascending scene, and the script takes no chances with the material, leaving the audience amused for the most part but with little that’s truly memorable to take away with them.  It’s also a movie with a good deal of padding, its near two-hour running time stretched out largely because of the unnecessary third act set back in the US.

On the performance side, the various child actors are all appropriately adorable, cute, winsome etc., while the adults, Sandler and Barrymore aside, all blend in with the scenery and make little impression.  Unusually, there aren’t the expected cameos from some of Sandler’s off-screen pals, which may have provided a much-needed distraction, but all in all the performances are perfunctory enough and match the spirit of the script and the direction.

Rating: 5/10 – lacklustre and only sporadically entertaining, Blended is Sandler and co. ably treading on water but to no discernible effect; something to pass the time if you need to, otherwise there are other, better Adam Sandler movies you could be watching.