Grown Ups 2 Opening Sequence Analysis

The establishing shot is a birds-eye view of what appears to be a town or city with a lot of greenery. It then merges into a wide view of a massive house with neatly trimmed plants and bushes outside. From the size and looks of the house we can analyse that these people are possibly very wealthy. It then goes into the house and we see Adam Sandler lying in bed, as he turns to his left we see a reindeer prodding him with his antlers. We then hear the crunching of the reindeer eating something from their bedroom side, at first is it asynchronous as we don’t actually see the reindeer eating it, we just assume. It then becomes synchronous sound as we can see where it’s coming from, it is also diegetic as the actors can hear the sound too.

The fact that one of the young boys screamed “can I ride him” when he sees the reindeer running through the house suggests a sense of vulnerability and the fact he thinks he can ride a reindeers shows his age and a boy’s imagination.

 Before we see the reindeer part, there is non-diegetic music playing in the background which sounds like calming and loving music, so we originally get a sense of a romantic genre. We hear the reindeer’s footsteps running all around the house with the screaming of all the family.

All of the characters are dressed in pyjamas so their costumes don’t really give off anything to do with status. However, we can tell which characters are male and which are female. There are three males and two females, the older male Lenny (Adam Sandler) has short hair is wearing knee length white shorts with a green t-shirt, the younger male also has a short haircut and is wearing shorts with a navy blue t-shirt. The final boy is standing in a towel with his shirt off. The two females are wearing what looks like night gowns. Another way we can differentiate between the fact that there are males and females is because at one stage, the characters throw laundry at the reindeer and a bra gets stuck on one of his antlers.

Although they have a big house which looks very clean, nothing else suggest that they are necessarily wealthy.