The War With Grandpa (2020) Movie Review

"The War with Grandpa" Is a Misfire with a Meanness at Odds with Its Feel-Good Message

The film "The War with Grandpa" is a comedy that features Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, Christopher Walken, Cheech Marin, and Jane Seymour. It is directed by Tim Hill and is based on the children's book by Robert Kimmel Smith. The story follows Pete (Oakes Fegley), a middle child who is happy with his family and is starting middle school with his loyal group of pals. However, when his grandfather, Ed (De Niro), starts having trouble functioning on his own, Pete's mom, Sally (Thurman), suggests that he come and live with them. This new living arrangement means that Pete must move out of his room and into the attic upstairs. This leads to an all-out war between Pete and Ed as Pete's friends suggest that he plays a bunch of tricks on his grandfather to make his life hell.

The premise of the film is high-concept, but the tension does not build up, and the antics run wild from the start. Pete's primary attack is unprovoked and makes him seem like a petulant brat rather than a regular kid. From there, "The War with Grandpa" ramps up with sub-Fockers levels of sabotage and one-upmanship. The increasingly damaging pranks involve a drone, fake shaving cream, a broken record player, and a shattered jar of marbles. In no time, the back-and-forth turns legitimately dangerous, with Pete placing a snake in Ed's bed and intentionally triggering the life alert button he wears around his neck, drawing emergency personnel for a false alarm.

The film plays these legitimate concerns for cheap laughs, and there is a meanness to "The War With Grandpa" that's at odds with its fundamental feel-good message. The fact that many of these gags are painfully wacky and predictable, including a trampoline dodgeball showdown that plays out exactly as you'd expect, only adds to the film's flaws. The movie doesn't earn the darker places it goes, and so it occupies a bland and mushy middle ground instead.

One of the film's issues is the debilitation of the grandfather, which is the driving force behind the action. His characterization is reductive and does not help the film's overall message. He can't figure out the self-checkout at the grocery store, knocks over the mailbox while backing out of the driveway, doesn't know how to read the news on an iPad, and still has a flip phone, so he can't summon a Lyft car if he runs into trouble. Ed seems like too nice of a guy to get caught up in all this mayhem. The fact that he allows this war to escalate the way it does makes absolutely no sense.

Moreover, the supporting cast members get little to do besides make the occasional wisecrack and chime in on Ed's next steps as his supportive group of friends. Thurman's chief characteristic as mom to Pete and his sisters (Laura Marano and Poppy Gagnon) is that she's always running late. Riggle is repeatedly emasculated throughout the film, either through a repeated joke about how he needs his wife's permission to use a chainsaw or with De Niro dropping his towel in front of Riggle in another deeply unfunny moment.

In conclusion, "The War with Grandpa" is a frustrating movie that fails to deliver a compelling story or engaging characters. Despite a talented cast featuring Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, Christopher Walken, Cheech Marin, and Jane Seymour, the film relies on a tired and mean-spirited premise that fails to resonate with audiences. The movie's central conflict, a war between a grandfather and his grandson over a bedroom, feels beyond archaic and tone-deaf in our current state of chaos and claustrophobia. The gags and pranks, which start off harmless enough, quickly become increasingly damaging and dangerous, and it's hard to root for any of the characters as a result.