SLUMMING IT (THE WAR WITH GRANDPA)

We should be long past the point now where we continue to moan about Robert de Niro's fixation with appearing in terrible comic movies.

de Niro mugging his way through a so-called comedy has been an unpleasant fact of life for three decades.

It's like catching the cold or having to change a baby's nappy/diaper.

You just accept it and move on, hoping it doesn't completely obliterate the memories of all those great performances from his youth.

But then, when a lame Robert de Niro comedy comes along that also features Uma Thurman and Christopher Walken among the cast, the disappointment is simply too thundering to ignore.

And that is why the first question that springs to mind during Tim Hill's 'The War Against Grandpa'' is: how the hell did the producers manage to attract such an accomplished cast?

'The War Against Grandpa' is a big screen adaptation of Robert Kimmel Smith's children's novel of the same name.

It's humour appears to be aimed at families who adore 'Home Alone,' 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' and 'Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day'.

But it's only in its dreams that it ever comes close to emulating those movies.

de Niro plays Ed Marino, a grumpy old widower who gets into trouble at his local supermarket after having difficulty scanning goods at the self-checkout.

Ed accidentally walks out with unscanned goods, triggering an alarm and is confronted by Faizon Love's store manager who knocks him to the ground, injuring his knee.

The incident sparks an oh so hilarious senior citizens' rebellion with the store manager being pelted with fruit and yoghurt by Ed and other angry, elderly passers-by.

Following a police caution fot Ed, his daughter, Uma Thurman's Sally Marino-Decker turns up at his door and insists on him moving into her family home.

However much to the chagrin of Ed's middle school grandson, Oakes Fegley's Pete, he has to vacate his bedroom for his grandad and move into the attic which has occasional incursions by rats and birds.

When Pete is not being picked on by the school bully,  he grumbles about losing his beloved bedroom to his mates Juliocaesar Chavez's wind up merchant Billy, Isaac Kragten's dim Steve and TJ McGibbon's more mature Emma.

Billy, however, eggs him on into formally declaring war on his grandfather in a bid to get his room back, with a series of whacky pranks that include replacing his shaving foam with quick drying foam or tinkering with his record player until it catapults his discs.

However the old man is also adept at pranks - substituting Pete's 'what i did over summer' essay with an embarrassing screed that he has to read out in class and loosening the screws that hold together his workstation and bed, so they fall apart.

Rules of engagement are drawn up between the both of them that they will prank each other but avoid any collateral damage that impacts Sally, her irritating husband Rob Riggle's Arthur, Pete's older teenage sister Laura Marano's Mia and his Christmas obsessed younger sister Poppy Gagnon's Jenny.

Inevitably, the rules are broken and the war impacts others, with Pete even recruiting his mates for a dodgeball showdown with Ed's senior citizen pals, Christopher Walken's Jerry, Cheech Marin's Danny and Jane Seymour's Diane.

Filmed before the pandemic, Hill's movie is a reminder of what suburban life looked like before lockdown.

But far from being a fond reminder of that way of life, it is instead a jarring mix of lame jokes and cutesy sentiment built around a first world problem.

In a time that has seen us realise how Covid restrictions have exacerbated inequality and robbed us of the time we have had to connect with older generations, the sight of an old man and his grandson going toe to toe in a dispute over a bedroom in a comfortable house just doesn't cut it.

Even worse, Hill and his screenwriters Tom J Astle and Matt Ember fail to land a single funny gag in the entire 94 minutes.

They even have the gall to turn their so-called comedy into a blindingly obvious allegory about why no-one should ever engage in a war of any kind as if they are performing a valuable public service.

Amid all the cartoonish pranks, Hill and his writers desperately want to remind us throughout the film that while Ed and Pete do nasty things to each other, they really love each other.

As a result, the film is tonally all over the place.

One minute, it's all hugs and "I love you".

The next it's "damn, I'm going to get you".

And with a script as feeble as this, it isn't just de Niro who mugs.

Adults watching 'The War With Grandpa' will not be surprised to see Riggle and Marin blustering their way through another bland comedy.

However they will find themselves shaking their head in disbelief at Thurman and Walken's participation and they may well be gripped with the fear that these two performers may go the same route as de Niro of mostly coasting it in one dull comedy after another.

Seymour is simply Seymour and is there to provide some love interest for de Niro.

As for de Niro.. well, at least it's not 'Dirty Grandpa'.

Hill serves up a flatly made film that thinks it is the family equivalent of Jay Roach and Paul Weitz's overrated 'Fockers' trilogy.

But it is much more like 'The Itchy and Scratchy Show' minus the laughs.

'The War With Grandpa' is a poorly written, unimaginatively executed film that is so boring it makes 94 minutes feel like 188. 

In these Covid times, Hill's film managed to secure a cinema release in the US and Canada last October and in a few other territories.

Remarkably, it has to date almost managed to make its $38 million budget back - an illustration of just how desperate cinema starved audiences must be to get back into their local multiplex, even with all the social distancing and mask wearing.

The film's producer has subsequently threatened a sequel, revealing 'The World War With Grandpa' is in the works.

Now that's a declaration of war, if there ever was one.

Is it too late to get Brookdale Studios and Universal Pictures to carry out a pre-emptive strike and spare us all the agony?

('The War With Grandpa' opened in US cinemas on October 9, 2020 and was released on Amazon Prime in the UK and Ireland on March 18, 2021)

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