Fifteen years too late, I finally saw one of Adam Sandler's best romantic comedies. Just Go With It was available to stream thanks to my Prime subscription, and my girlfriend decided we should watch it after a night on the town.
Now that I'm up to speed and finally get why everyone is such a fan of anytime Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler do something together, I have some things to say. For the record, I do like this movie, especially when I realized I wasn't watching Murder Mystery or its sequel, but I do have to talk about these things.
Katherine Is Largely To Blame For This Situation
Is Danny 100% a sleeze for taking his pain and spinning it into a long-running scheme where he pretends to be married to hook up with women? Absolutely, but let's not forget who told him coming clean to Palmer would be a terrible idea. Katherine was the one who encouraged, and even insisted he lie to save the relationship, and then accidentally made it worse by bringing her children into it.
So, when they're on the way to Hawaii, and she's threatening to come clean about the situation, I can't help but point out this is largely her doing. Even so, this fact hasn't prevented the movie from regularly charting when it pops up on streaming, plus there wouldn't be a movie if Daniel just ignored her advice.
Danny's Exit Strategy Was Wild
Taking Palmer on this entire ride was wild enough, but that's not even the worst part of the plan. Imagine, had he not called off the wedding, what Danny then intended to put her through. He was going to say Katherine and his "children" tragically died in an accident. Simple and clean break, right?
Wrong. It's not like Danny could just throw up his hands to Palmer and be like, "Well, that's that." There'd need to be a funeral, attendees, family members, and months, if not years, of mourning. In my mind, the lie had only just begun if that was his exit strategy, so a relationship with Palmer was never going to work. Perhaps that's part of the reason why this movie got low scores when it came out.
Dave Matthews Is Hilarious In This
Dave Matthews is far more well-known for his music than his acting, but he really deserves a round of applause for his performance as Ian in Just Go With It. He plays the stereotypical affluent snob perfectly, to the point of it being an exaggerated caricature. Perhaps it's genius then that we learn late in the movie that he never invented the iPod as he stated, but sued the Los Angeles Dodgers after getting hit with a foul ball.
It kind of makes it perfect, then, that he acts the way he does. He's trying to fit in and putting on the best imitation of what that looks like. I guess it's only natural then to find out his marriage was a lie, as Develin suspected he was gay. Danny says he suspected as much after seeing how well he picked up a coconut with his butt, which, while off-color, remains one of the most memorable scenes that had me in stitches.
Is Just Go With It worth seeing 15 years later? Absolutely. If you do as the movie says, and pay less attention to Rotten Tomatoes and other aggregates, you can have a fun night watching this movie and not regret a thing.
