His grown daughter, Sally (Uma Thurman) invites Pops to move in with the family, a perfect sitcom configuration which includes her bumbling husband (Rob Riggle in doofus dad mode), a boy-crazy teenage daughter (Laura Marano) and an adorable young moppet (Poppy Gagnon). Did you enjoy this post? Filmed in the early summer of 2017, shuffled around from various release dates in 2018, sold by its distributor in an everything-must-go fire sale and now unleashed on a beggars-can’t-be-choosers public in late 2020, The War With Grandpa isn’t going to dent De Niro’s legacy. The only moderately enjoyable part of The War with Grandpa is Ed’s older friends, who eventually get drafted into the battle, as do a few of Peter’s school pals. Sign up for our newsletter. Doors fall down, furniture is reassembled, shaving cream is replaced with foam sealant, things blow up in people’s faces. The War With Grandpa. What I had always heard from people I know who read the source novel back in the day is that the book version of Peter is a true asshole, seeing his loving grandfather as an intruder rather than a welcome guest who genuinely cares for him and his two sisters. By selecting a book with such a potentially unlikable child protagonist, the filmmakers may have assigned themselves an impossible task, and while there have certainly been worse family-friendly films made in recent years, none of them are the biggest movie coming out this week, in theaters no less. Tagged as: Cheech Marin, Christopher Walken, Jane Seymour, Oakes Fegley, Rob Riggle, Robert De Niro, Tim Hill, Uma Thurman, Your email address will not be published. Things go off the rails at a Christmas-themed birthday party for Peter’s younger sister, which is meant to be a temporary peace between the warring parties. A snake gets involved, and Air Jordans are turned into abstract expressionist artworks. How did these leading men ever get persuaded into making this film? Eventually, Peter brings his middle-school buddies into the mix, and Ed enlists a loose crew of AARP-aged miscreants whose membership includes Christopher Walken, Cheech Marin and Jane Seymour. His daughter Sally (Uma Thurman, who played De Niro’s love interest in Mad Dog and Glory, so…ew) and son-in-law Arthur (Rob Riggle) are more than accommodating, so much so that they give Ed Pete’s easily accessible room and put Pete in the attic with the mice and other assorted creepies. The only problem? De Niro is rendered au naturel below the belt more than once. 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Someone genuinely trusts director Tim Hill with family-friendly entertainment. You could always just throw down the white flag before shots are fired and save yourself the trouble. At this point in his career, Robert De Niro has nothing left to prove. Ed is assigned to the attic. There are brief mentions of real war throughout the movie—Ed is an actual veteran, so he’s seen a few things—but nothing quite braced me for the impact of Peter’s final thoughts on the futility of a large-scale war like the one in which these two have engaged. After everything is wrapped up and its back to smiles and rainbows again, and a coda suggests — what, future Home Alone-lite scrimmages? No one is expecting Raging Bull here, or even The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle. © Copyright 2020 Rolling Stone, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. This is a partnered post. By the time dodgeballs start knocking out dentures and hitting nuts, you’ll suddenly finding yourself feeling a lot more affection for Little Fockers. (If you are anticipating that it’s a sequel to 2016’s Dirty Grandpa, however, you’ll be shit out of luck. View thirdcoastreview’s profile on Facebook, View thirdcoastreview’s profile on Instagram, Button, Button: This Northside Activist Is Making Tiny Political Works of Art, Review: A Battle of the Generations in Sloppy, Cringe-Worthy, Interview: Filmmaker Tim Hill on the Subtext in, Miranda Winters of Melkbelly Steps Into the Spotlight on Her Latest Single. Disclosure Policy. Upset that he has to share the room he loves with his grandfather, Peter decides to declare war … Director Tim Hill was one of three folks credited with developing SpongeBob SquarePants, then proceeded to give the world Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties and the first Alvin and the Chipmunks movie. Cheech and Chong, Christopher Walken, Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman. Grade: B+ Last seen bathed in a fountain of digital youth in Martin Scorsese’s We dearly wish that was a euphemism, but no. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters. This officially squanders the last of his banked good will. A toothless, tiresome attempt at a family-friendly story of a grumpy old man engaged in guerilla warfare with his grandson, it’s only purpose seems to be giving the screen icon and his namebrand costars the chance to pay off a summer cottage or just get out of the house. You take a lot of roles, some of them will be decent, some of them will be willing self-parody and some will be bad. Buyer beware.) Your email address will not be published. Review: A Battle of the Generations in Sloppy, Cringe-Worthy The War with Grandpa; Interview: Filmmaker Tim Hill on the Subtext in The War with Grandpa, Reuniting Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken, and the Next Spongebob Movie; Review: Falcon Age Is … He’s already having trouble adjusting to sixth grade, and now this? The only potential suffering will be happening on the viewer’s side of the equation.
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