Big Daddy Review
by James Brundage (brundage AT alltel DOT net)July 26th, 1999
Big Daddy
Directed by Dennis Dugan
Written by Steve Franks, Tim Herlihy, and Adam Sandler
Story by Steve Franks
Starring Adam Sandler, Joey Lauren Adams, Jon Stewart, Cole Sprouse, Dyland Sprouse, Leslie Mann, and Rob Schneider
Cameo by Steve Buscemi
As Reviewed by James Brundage (MovieKritic2000)
This is the part I love. After seeing a slew of bad movies, the part where I get to write a really rotten review is the most fun. Seeing the movie is both annoying and boring, but reviewing it is where I get my perverse pleasure. In taking these terrible movies out back and beating them with a stick.
This is what happens to movie critics after more than a year in the business. As soon as you get serious about your work, not just doing the work on a whim as something you like to do for you High School newspaper or your local paper, you begin to really enjoy the work. You begin to love the bad movies as much as you love the good ones, because, with the bad movies, you get the pleasure of writing a really, really bad review.
Big Daddy prompts such a review.
Big Daddy, Adam Sandler's latest proof to the world that he is an ape wearing a man suit, is an attempt to emulate feelings. It is an attempt to make a sweet movie out of someone who still has a lisp at about 30 and is always being accused of being a kid. It is that kid's attempt to prove that he is a responsible adult.
The key word here is attempt.
Big Daddy attempts to be funny, it attempts to be romantic, and it attempts to be touching. What it succeeds at is being tedious. The only good words I can say about it are that it was better than The Wedding Singer.
Big Daddy is one of those movies written by monkeys, directed by a monkey, and acted in by monkeys that are mostly former members of the SNL cast. The ones that aren't are making serious career mistakes (i.e. Steve Buscemi and Joey Lauren Adams, who have both done great work in independent film and completely suck every time they go studio). It tries to score its laughs from appropriately juvenile humor: Hooters jokes, insults thrown to Little Italy, roller bladers tripping over themselves, etc. It fails.
With a target demographic of teenagers, it spends its time having adults that don't act like adults at all. They just act like immature jerks. Now normally, when a jerk is on screen in Hollywood, if they do the scene right, he comes off good, but in Big Daddy, the jerks are just plain jerks... including Adam Sandler.
I suppose I should probably be nicer to Adam Sandler. Critics like me have bashed so many of his movies saying that they have no point that he has instead decided to make this one, which has way too much point. Of course, if I were to go nice on him, then he would still be making movies like The Wedding Singer, and then where would we be?
No, I'd rather be mean.
Twins Cole and Dylan Sprouse play Julian, a child who miraculously landed on Entertainment Weekly's "IT list" following this movie. My question is "why?" Normally, child actors are bad, but these two are especially bad. They're so bad that I have to really wonder who else the director considered for the part... and then have a shivering fit.
As far as my comments to the leads, lemme say first to Joey Lauren Adams that ever since you broke up with Kevin Smith (after he directed you to a Golden Globe nomination for Chasing Amy), you have been on a downward spiral. Now let me say to Adam Sandler that you are not funny, you will never be funny, and you will never be recognized as anything but a complete idiot. So, please, don't even try.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
