(PG) *

Director: Dennis Dugan.

Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph.

SANDLER, James, Rock, Spade, Schneider - they've all had their moments of hilarity (yes, even Schneider, although that was one time and it was in 50 First Dates).

So, with such a cast, you'd expect this to be a funny film. Wikipedia and IMDB even say it's a comedy.

Strange then that this should be so unfunny. In fact, it's surprisingly, amazingly, bafflingly uncomedic and unhilarious. I think I laughed once. And that was barely a snigger. But that's just one of the film's many problems.

The plot centres on five buddies who re-unite for the funeral of their old basketball coach and decide to return to the lake-house where they celebrated a basketball victory 30 years prior.

Each of them has grown up - except Spade's Higgy, a loose facsimile of his Rules Of Engagement character - and each has his hang-ups and marital/life issues.

Over the course of a long weekend, they reconnect, relive their childhood and attempt to deal with their issues.

One of the main problems - aside from the decided lack of laughs - is that these "issues" are dealt with in such a haphazard manner it's as if they weren't even issues to start with.

The characters are sketched so thinly they're barely even one-dimensional and we don't get to know them any better across the running time (you'll struggle to recall their names). Schneider's Rob is a wacky hippie-ish repeat-marrier with a senior citizen girlfriend, Sandler's Lenny is a successful Hollywood agent with a hot wife (Hayek) and a trio of spoilt brats, Rock's McKenzie is a put-upon house husband, Spade's Higgy is a sleazy ladies man and James's 'Lemon Salt' is the fat one.

Little is learnt, characters aren't fleshed out, situations are poorly set-up, much of the plot is poorly explained or comes out of nowhere, gags miss at every turn, and the whole thing is a wasted opportunity.

The only thing Grown Ups has going for it is the relationship between its stars, who generate enough bonhomie and who seem to be having such a good time on set (not surprising given Sandler, Rock, Schneider and Spade all joined Saturday Night Live around the same time) that you can't hate them. You can only feel sorry that they made such a piece of unfunny rubbish.