In 2013, three years after the events of the first film, Lenny Feder relocated his family to his hometown of Stanton, where his friends Eric Lamonsoff, Kurt McKenzie, and Marcus Higgins live.
Police officers Fluzoo and Dante escort them to Becky's ballet recital at McDonough Elementary, where Lenny runs into Tommy, who openly threatens him.
Marcus bonds with Braden, Charlotte goes on her date, Andre passes his driving test overseen by Wiley, and Greg succeeds in asking out Nancy Arbuckle, a girl he has a crush on.
The critics consensus reads: "While it's almost certainly the movie event of the year for filmgoers passionate about deer urine humor, Grown Ups 2 will bore, annoy, and disgust audiences of nearly every other persuasion.
[26] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter said, "Throughout, gags are cartoonishly broad and afforded so little time for setup and delivery we seem to be watching less a story than a catalog of tossed-out material.
"[27] Andrew Barker of Variety said, "Among the slackest, laziest, least movie-like movies released by a major studio in the last decade, "Grown Ups 2" is perhaps the closest Hollywood has yet come to making "Ow, My Balls!"
"[28] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film one out of four stars, saying, "The temptation arises to say something nice about "Grown Ups 2" just because it doesn't cause injury.
"[31] Rafer Guzman of Newsday gave the film one out of four stars, saying, "For all its warm and fuzzy notions of family and community, Grown Ups 2... has a desperate reliance on nasty jokes about pee, poo and – with surprising frequency – gay panic.
"[32] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, who gave the film a B, said, "In certain ways, Grown Ups 2 marks a return to classically Sandlerian infantile anarchy.
"[33] Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times gave the film one and a half stars out of five, saying, "Grown Ups 2 looks like it was a lot of fun to make.
Club gave the film a D−, saying, "Largely free of Sandler’s usual schmaltz and lame romance, it’s pure plotless, grotesque high jinks, bizarre and inept in a way that’s fascinating without ever being all that funny.
"[36] Nick Schager of The Village Voice gave the film a negative review, saying "A few decent one-liners notwithstanding, the movie comes off as willfully uninspired.
"[38] Sara Stewart of the New York Post gave the film half a star out of four, saying, "The movie lurches from one gross-out scene to another, flipping the bird at continuity and logic.
At times it seems to actually drain IQ points from its viewers while wasting a talented cast of "Saturday Night Live" alums, who are all capable of being much smarter and so much funnier.
"[40] Andy Webster of The New York Times gave the film one out of five stars, saying, "This is pap, plain and simple: scattered raunch-lite devoid of emotional resonance.
"[41] Peter Keough of The Boston Globe gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying, "Apparently the world demanded another family-friendly version of The Hangover, one that combined scatological comedy with smarmy sentimentality.
"[42] Connie Ogle of the Miami Herald gave the film one out of four stars, saying, "Nobody escapes untainted by the foul stench of Grown Ups 2; it’s bad enough to make you look askance at Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, and Maya Rudolph, all of whom deserve a chance to do something funny other than pose as wives exuding various degrees of sexiness.
"[45] Alonso Duralde of The Wrap wrote, "Yes, it's time for another visit to the Adam Sandler Death-of-Cinema Fun Factory, the big-screen version of a terrible sitcom where laugh tracks are replaced by the co-stars chuckling at their own awful material.
"[47] In 2014, comedians Tim Batt and Guy Montgomery watched the film every week for a full year for the first season of their podcast, The Worst Idea of All Time.
"[52] In January 2020, comedian Tom Scharpling gained attention for uploading an unofficial and unaffiliated Grown Ups 3 script, written in April 2019, to Twitter.