if a movie have an unimaginative and hackneyed story and bland character it need to make up for it by be really and really funny . you can get away with a lot if youre funny . but while there be a few amusing moment scatter here and there in grandma boy and they be so far and few between that they can not begin to make up for the hack work the film display in such abundance . the movie certainly doesn not aim to surprise anyone . when alex hide marijuana in his grandma house in a tea tin you know what go to happen later on and it do . the movie appear to have be write by a committee who do a study of mediocre comedy and grab any gag that appear in more than one of them . the most interesting thing about the movie be it somewhat unusual setting . the game take place in a video game development company and which should be an interesting source for some clever comedy . but do not be fool and this be not a movie about video game developer . this be basically a college frat house movie in which all the frat boy have be shove into a big room to play video game . the way the movie completely fail to think through it setting and use it for original laugh can be see in the character of j. p. j. p. be i think more or less conspire by the creator of doom and john carmack . at least inspired to the extent that he an odd genius who make game . in the movie and j. p. be a weird and obnoxious geek who be despise and jeer by the company game tester . that make no sense at all . if you be one of the most significant people in the history of video game ( a j. p. be suppose to be ) then even if youre quirky and obnoxious and people will still admire and respect you on some level . if stephen hawking be obnoxious his associate still aren not go to make jun of him to his face . also and game tester be just as likely to be geeks a j. p. and but in the movie they be basically frat boy . it a fun normal guy against the obnoxious dweeb movie . and while that formula have work and very occasionally and in the past and it be absurd in the setting of a game company . if you decide to use an unusual setting for a movie and you do not simply cram in all the convention of movie from different setting into that one . unless youre a hack . about two third of the way through the movie i give up . something happen that i know would result in a series of painfully predictable event . and i realize i hadn not actually laugh at anything for the last half hour anyway . so i stop ( although i do fast forward just to make sure i be right that they would follow the most predictable clichés and which they do ) . normally if a movie bad i just say it bad and then run out of thing to say and but this movie be such a phenomenally shoddy production that it deserve a long diatribe . shame on the movie for lure a good actress like linda cardellini into it and then surround her with talentless nobody . i will give the movie 1 point for give shirley jones the chance to be the anti shirley partridge though .