Big Daddy Review
by Susan Granger (Ssg722 AT aol DOT com)July 1st, 1999
http://www.speakers-podium.com/susangranger.
Susan Granger's review of "BIG DADDY" (Columbia Pictures)
Once again, Adam Sandler is playing dumb all the way to the bank. His comedies may be dopey but audiences love 'em. Once again, Sandler plays the grown-up kid - only, this time, he has a youngster in his life. He's a law school graduate who is adamantly avoiding the adult pressures of a career and marriage. Instead, he's a slacker, working part-time as a toll-taker and watching cartoons on TV. In a misguided attempt to impress his girlfriend (Kristy Swanson), he adopts a five year-old boy (twins Cole and Dylan Sprouse), under the pretense of being his biological father. When the plan doesn't work out, he tries to "return" the kid to Social Services. But when he realizes the kid will wind up in an orphanage, he agrees to be a temporary dad until a suitable foster family can be
found. Predictably, Sandler bonds so strongly with the kid that he wants to make the relationship permanent and legal, accepting real-life responsibility. So much for plot. Like in "The Waterboy," "Happy Gilmore," and "Billy Madison," Sandler scores as a stupid guy fixated on one big idea. It's a one-joke concept but, for him, it works. So does a urinating-in-public gag, which is repeated over and over. Insofar as child-rearing goes, the immature bachelor relies on junk food, unsupervised play, and profane language. Joey Lauren Adams is lamely wasted as a lawyer, but Steve Buscemi does an amusing cameo as a Charles Dickens'-inspired vagrant noting, "In retrospect, I made some really bad choices after high school." Sentimentally written by Steve Franks, Tim Herlihy & Adam Sandler, and directed towards sappy sight gags by Dennis Dugan, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Big Daddy" is a gross, feeble 4. And, if you get truly bored, try counting the astonishing number of product placements.
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