A Huge Adam Sandler Rom-Com Flop Is Getting A Second Life On Netflix

So how did critics receive “Blended” when it first came out? Not very well! The movie only has a 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes with a critical consensus that reads, “Lurching between slapstick and schmaltz without showing much of a commitment to either, ‘Blended’ commits the rare Sandler sin of provoking little more than boredom.” That consensus is pretty mild compared to what some critics had to say.

For example, Richard Brody at The New Yorker wrote, “The romance is sweet and even effervescent, the comedy is homespun and sentimental, but it’s packaged with such a repellent batch of stereotypes and prejudices that it’s unpalatable even to contemplate.” Over at the Los Angeles Times, Amy Nicholson felt as if the film stuck to some off-putting stereotypes about men and women: “In the world of this sitcom love story, men are from Mars and women should be from a defiled menstrual tent far enough away that Adam Sandler won’t have to hear them talk about tampons.” David Edelstein at Vulture also didn’t think much of the movie, writing, “Sandler would piss out of the screen if he thought he could get a laugh. This is not his worst film, but it’s his most offensive.”

At the New York Times, A.O. Scott went after the filmmaking itself, writing, “Most of ‘Blended’ has the look and pacing of a three-camera sitcom filmed by a bunch of eighth graders and conceived by their less bright classmates. Christy LeMire at RogerEbert.com even tried to find a positive slant, sort of: “A decent movie might actually be buried here somewhere deep, deep down. The world will never know.”

“Blended” is available to stream on Netflix now.