'The War With Grandpa' Trailer: Robert De Niro And His Old Friends Go Head To Head With His Grandson

I was scrolling through Netflix the other day and noticed something odd: the 1993 live-action adaptation of Dennis the Menace was among the top ten movies on Netflix at that moment. (Did you know that film was directed by Nick Castle, the same guy who played Michael Myers/The Shape in Halloween? Because I didn't!) In any case, I found it curious that a significant chunk of Netflix subscribers were watching a decades-old movie about generational warfare between a grandfatherly figure and a young whipper-snapper.

But now a brand new movie is coming along to help quench the world's thirst for stories in which young and old men engage in prank wars with each other. It's called The War with Grandpa, and, naturally, it stars one of the greatest American actors of all time: Oakes Fegley. No, I'm kidding. It stars Robert De Niro. Well, Fegley is also in it, but he's not one of the greatest Am–you know what? Never mind. Let's just roll the trailer.

Ah yes, a reference to The Godfather. Clever! But wait a second: the "horse head in the bed" moment they're referencing at the end of this The War with Grandpa trailer took place in the original Godfather movie, and De Niro was only in The Godfather: Part II. I take it back – not clever!

Snarky bullshit aside, this movie is clearly not meant for me, and that's totally fine. I remember watching a goofy 1997 thriller called Masterminds which pitted a young Vincent Kartheiser against a villain played by Patrick Stewart and I loved the hell out of it, even though my older self would surely have rolled his eyes at it. I suppose every generation needs its goofy "versus" comedies like these, so at the end of the day, I'm just glad it's giving people like Christopher Walken, Uma Thurman, and Jane Seymour a chance to have a little fun on screen.

Here's the movie's official synopsis:

Sixth-grader Peter (Oakes Fegley) is pretty much your average kid-he likes gaming, hanging with his friends and his beloved pair of Air Jordans. But when his recently widowed grandfather Ed (Robert De Niro) moves in with Peter's family, the boy is forced to give up his most prized possession of all, his bedroom. Unwilling to let such an injustice stand, Peter devises a series of increasingly elaborate pranks to drive out the interloper, but Grandpa Ed won't go without a fight. Soon, the friendly combatants are engaged in an all-out war with side-splitting consequences.

The War with Grandpa is set to hit theaters on October 9, 2020.