Beloved on “Saturday Night Live” and loved a lot less since then, one need look no further than recent conversations about a box office weekend showdown (“Pacific Rim” vs. “Grown Ups 2”) to see just how far Adam Sandler‘s reputation has sunk with some audiences. Often perceived as a moronic blight on comedy and movies, this point is sometimes difficult to argue, especially in recent years as the quality of his comedies has become nearly negligible (though Armond White will fight you on that opinion to the death; that respected critic loves the man).
But, like him or not, Sandler’s been a bankable one-man brand for many years now, doing absolutely anything he wants in comedy (like giving buddies Rob Schneider and David Spade careers) with ridiculously high budgets (far surpassing the average comedy), and with tons of superstar guests to boot (Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Buscemi and even cameos by Quentin Tarantino and Johnny Depp to name a few). His status is something most comedians can only dream of achieving. His charming (?) mixture of schlubby everyman and schticky character actor is often critic-proof and his movies are almost always box office gold. And his occasional attempts at experimentation are almost always counterbalanced by the kind of feature that practically guarantees mainstream acceptance. It can be hard to love Sandler in recent years, but it’s impossible to deny he is a unique force; the Tom Cruise or Will Smith of comedy worldwide.
This week his first sequel, Sony‘s “Grown Ups 2,” opens nationwide, and we thought we’d… uh, mark the occasion by looking back at the bumpy, varied and sometimes unpredictable career of one of the most successful talents in contemporary comedy, Adam Sandler (wow, does it feel weird saying that). Get ready to remember all the silly voices and strained premises that have made him the star he is today. Shabadoo!
“That’s My Boy” (2012)
“Jack And Jill” was an underperformer as far as Sandler’s usual output, but “That’s My Boy” had to be the first time the comedian suffered an outright rejection from his core since the fairly adventurous “Little Nicky.” Maybe it was the R-rating; Sandler’s always been crude and disgusting, but he’s never found a way to exclude the teenage fanbase that made him a millionaire. The assumption was that Sandler’s core audience had grown with him, but perhaps they had finally grown tired, and seeing the vaguely lovable miscreant as a drunken deadbeat dad was a sobering reminder of the demographic’s mortality. Or maybe they finally caught on to the fact that Sandler stars in terrible, shapeless films with no shelf life: “That’s My Boy” adds to this typically slipshod construction (and typically improbable runtime of 116 minutes) by centering on a story that celebrates statutory rape, finding a young, pre-teen Sandler impregnating his teacher and enjoying a consequence-less fifteen minutes of fame well into his forties. His pursuit of a distant son played by Andy Samberg is more of a passing-of-the-torch from one “SNL” cast member to another, but it doesn’t work because Samberg is stuck playing the straight man to Sandler’s beer-addled antics, hamstrung by a straightforward narrative with room for only one of these comics to cut loose. Again, like “Jack And Jill,” there’s the sense Sandler is actually acting this time around (while also revealing his limited skill in that venue), but it’s buried under a nearly two-hour cocktail of jokes about sex, incest and prostitutes. Sandler pictures usually encourage audiences to cheer even when his characters are being selfish, obnoxious boors, but during the grotesque, Bud Light-sponsored climax of “That’s My Boy,” even his most diehard fans rejected the movie outright. [D-]
