film | Reefer badness

At long last, the cinematic equivalent of getting a colonoscopy from a skittish med student during a funeral for someone you never liked!

In other words, the Adam Sandler-produced stoner spectacle GRANDMA'S BOY inspires the kind of excruciating discomfort that only a comedy with nary a truly funny moment can. Sure, the cast here appears to be having a swell time as they goof their way through crude shtick involving flatulent african tribesmen, masturbatus interruptus, and old ladies swilling tea spiked with marijuana, but any genuine mirth emanating from this film must've squealed to a halt following the wrap party — aside from the two or three chuckles provided by Shirley "Mrs. Partridge" Jones as a horny septuagenarian with a list of sexual conquests dating back to Charlie Chaplin, of course.

In an assembly-line premise that was probably pitched as Karold & Kumar meet the Golden Girls, frequent Sandler cohort Allen Covert (Big Daddy) plays a mid-30s pothead video-game tester who's forced to move in with his doting granny (Everybody Loves Raymond's Doris Roberts, shock of shocks) and her kooky gal pals (Jones and Shirley Knight, far too wonderful to be reduced to pill-popping buffoonery) after his roommate blows their rent money on hookers. Ashamed, he tells his hopeless-nerd buddies at work he's shacking with a trio of slutty babes, which leads to a number of situational complications when he falls for a hottie project supervisor (Brokeback Mountain's Linda Cardellini), and ... wait, do you honestly care about the story? The writers — Covert, co-star Nick Swardson and Barry Wernick — don't really seem to, which makes one wonder if they were aiming for The 40-Year-Old Virgin's sublime mix of the sweet and the salty, but then got distracted upon the prop truck accidentally delivering authentic weed to the set.

Anyway, Grandma's Boy contains a couple of naked boobs, obligatory cameos by Rob Schneider and David Spade (or, if you prefer, a couple of clothed boobs), miscalculated warm-'n'-fuzzies, more ganja humor than you can shake a spliff at, drunk karaoke performances, a chimp driving a car, the inventive use of a Lara Croft action figure as a sexual aid, and a Matrix-worshiping techie villain (Joel David Moore) who makes hydraulic robot noises whenever he moves his arms, legs and neck. With that, you should know if this movie'll be up your alley. For everyone else, the queue forms behind me. D-