D-

Despite its title, “Grown Ups” is infantile, a puerile, pitifully sloppy comedy about a bunch of guys suffering from arrested development made by guys who apparently actually do. And it’s even worse when it tries to make a serious point than when it tries—unsuccessfully—to be funny. That Adam Sandler and his cohorts have foisted it upon the public as an example of their talents only demonstrates their arrogance—and their contempt for their fans.

The script’s described as having been written by Sandler, the producer-star, and Fred Wolf, but most of it feels like bad improvisation. There’s only the thinnest of plots—five old chums, who won a grade-school basketball championship thirty-odd years earlier, reunite for the funeral of their beloved coach. The leader is Lenny (Sandler), a hot-shot Hollywood agent, whose wife Roxanne (Salma Hayek) is a hot-shot fashion designer. They have three kids, two video-game-obsessed boys and a cute-as-a-button little girl. Then there’s Eric (Kevin James), a lawn-furniture salesman, who brings his wife Sally (Maria Bello), obnoxious daughter and young son. Kurt (Chris Rock) is a stay-at-home dad with two kids, a son and daughter; his wife (Maya Rudolph) is pregnant, and his mother-in-law (Ebony Jo-Ann) is a tart-tongued harridan. Marcus (David Spade) is an unmarried drunkard with an eye for young broads, while Rob (Rob Schneider) is a spike-haired prima donna who comes with his third wife, the much older Gloria (Joyce Van Patten), and is later joined by three grown daughters, two striking and one plain. They spend a few days at a lakeside cabin with their pals, wives and children, and the experience not only brings them all closer but helps the various families to grow and learn the joys of living the simple life, too.

This slender thread is merely the excuse for a string of poorly organized sketches marked by humor that’s mostly crude though supposedly good-natured. So we get lots of gags about urinating and farting, as well as poop. But that’s only the beginning. Some jokes involve hideous bunions, obesity and not-full-frontal male nudity. But more revolve around how lovably ridiculous old people are, particularly when it comes to sex. And there are plenty of gags not just about horny middle-aged guys but horny adolescents, too. And others centering on a funny-sounding dog and a funny-voiced muscled stud. Young women are dressed in the most revealing shorts and tops, or sometimes bikinis, and photographed in slow-mo for males in the audience to ogle. There are the inevitable crotch kicks and other varieties of slapstick violence. And for good measure we’re treated to humorous interludes about alcoholism and even a passing gag involving possible child molestation and bestiality. And one of the most-repeated gags centers on a four-year old boy insisting on being breast-fed and the mother who happily complies. In other words, this is what passes for a family movie nowadays.

Of course, there’s a build-up of sorts—though an incredibly clumsy one—to an obligatory finale involving a replay of that championship game, which one of the ill-tempered losers (Colin Quinn) insists they were robbed of by a last-second shot that shouldn’t have counted. By this time husbands and wives have grown closer and children have learned to frolic outside and enjoy their parents’ presence. In other words, everybody’s come to understand what’s really important in life. So it should come as no surprise that the culminating basketball contest—at July 4 festival, no less (we’ve earlier endured a long, extraneous outing at a water park)—closes with a sappy life lesson, too. These sentimental, sitcom-serious interpolations are so sad that they almost make one long for a return to the “funny” bits, however gross.

Nobody really acts here; they’re all doing cheap stand-up turns, and Dennis Dugan’s typically lackadaisical direction imposes no control on their excesses. Sandler just mopes through the picture, but he ungenerously gives himself the part of the one really successful member of the quintet, and also the one who’s wisest about how they all ought to live. The four other “stars” are one-note figures, and played that way. The women are even more sketchily drawn, reaching a low point in a scene at that unnecessary water park where they descend to “Sex and the City” level. And the youngsters are just convenient foils. But certainly the most embarrassing turns—despite the awful ones handed to Spade, Schneider, Bello, Hayak and Van Patten—go to prune-faced Quinn and particularly Steve Buscemi, whose cameo as one of his pals is the movie’s absolute nadir, worse even than Spade’s face-fall into a pile of animal dung. Other refugees from SNL like Tim Meadows and Norm MacDonald fare better, but only just.

It remains to be noted that “Grown Ups” looks pretty terrible, with barely adequate photography from Theo van de Sande, and Rupert Gregson-Williams’ score doesn’t sound any better than the wretched dialogue. One might be inclined to trash Tom Costain’s editing, but the choppy, meandering character of the movie really can’t be blamed on him. Its wretchedness really has to be chalked up to Sandler and his real-life pals, who might have had a good time getting together and slapping it together, but should certainly have had the common decency not to inflict the result on the rest of us.