'Just Go With It' should just go

Tracing the genealogy of "Just Go With It" is a bit like trying to figure out how the crepes suzette evolved into the clam pizza. The original French farce was adapted for Broadway as "Cactus Flower" and now, more than 40 years later, is dragged back into comedy's equivalent of the primordial ooze by Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston and a movie whose few bright moments are like drops of ice water in hell.

"You haven't really thought this through," Aniston's Katherine Murphy tells her boss, plastic surgeon Danny Maccabee (Sandler), and no truer words were ever spoken. As a young groom-to-be, Danny had his heart broken but soon learned the power of his leftover wedding ring. By lying about his miserable, nonexistent marriage, he got sympathetic women into bed.

When he finally meets Palmer (Brooklyn Decker), the girl of his dreams, the ring threatens to scuttle the romance. But instead of coming clean - which would end the movie mere moments into its interminable 116 minutes - Danny asks his assistant Katherine, a single mom, to play his wife.

That way he can convince Palmer he's getting a divorce. For some reason, they all go to Hawaii, where things get much, much worse.

No one expects anything from Sandler at this point, other than smarmy vulgarity. But the Aniston situation is kind of sad. While we need not weep for someone getting "Friends" residuals, she has never (excepting "The Good Girl") made a movie equal to her talent.