The War with Grandpa: Neon NZ Film Review

If being amiable is a cinematic crime, then The War With Grandpa may be facing some jail time for its inoffensive family-led fare.

De Niro is Jack, who's forced to go and live with his daughter and family after an incident at a supermarket checkout. It's even worse for Peter (Fegley) because the arrival of Grandpa Jack means Peter has to give up his bedroom and go live in the attic.

Sensing it's the ultimate humiliation, Peter declares war on Grandpa Jack, determined to make him move out - but Jack can also be a child and digs his heels in as the battle lines are drawn.

Sure, you could argue that it's appalling to see a cinematic legend like De Niro phone it in and channel some of his previously shown edge from gangster films in The War With Grandpa.  You could argue it's debasing to see Christopher Walken and Cheech Marin mugging when they do - but they're obviously having fun and riffing on previous movie outings from their own catalogue.

And granted, much of the film sees the rest of the big name cast doing relatively thankless lifting as various family members and friends in service of a series of pratfalls and pranks writ large.

But the duelling family film will appeal to the younger end of the audience, amused by silly japes, unexpected nudity from De Niro and general silliness from the movie, which has been adapted from a book from Robert Kimmel Smith.

It's mediocre in parts, and occasionally the stop-start nature of the script as it edges in more of the war pranks does grate, but for the large part, The War With Grandpa does exactly what you'd expect as it treads its well-worn path to redemption before 90 minutes is up.