Little Nicky Review
by Shannon Patrick Sullivan (shannon AT morgan DOT ucs DOT mun DOT ca)November 30th, 2000
LITTLE NICKY (2000) / **
Directed by Steven Brill. Screenplay by Tom Herlihy, Adam Sandler and Brill. Starring Sandler, Rhys Ifans, Patricia Arquette. Running time: 94 minutes. Rated AA by the MFCB. Reviewed on November 28th, 2000.
By SHANNON PATRICK SULLIVAN
Imagine a movie in which Adam Sandler stars as a perpetual underdog with a speech impediment who dotes on a parent. Despite himself, he acquires a girlfriend who's a bit of a social reject herself. He finds a purpose in his life; it involves Sandler getting knocked down a lot. Oh, and Henry Winkler appears.
Quick, am I describing "The Waterboy" or "Little Nicky"?
Indeed, Sandler's latest comedy effort, "Little Nicky", bears an awful lot of similarities to his blockbuster "The Waterboy" -- it just has more special effects and extraneous cameo appearances. The level of humour and the appeal of the two films are virtually identical. Basically, if you like Adam Sandler movies, you'll probably like "Little Nicky". Otherwise, chances are you'll be better off steering clear.
In "Little Nicky", Sandler plays the title character, the third and youngest son of Satan (Harvey Keitel). Whereas Nicky is timid and loves his Dad, his brothers -- devious Adrian (Rhys Ifans) and powerful Cassius (Tom 'Tiny' Lister Jr) -- want nothing more than to supplant their father as ruler of Hell. When the Devil tells his boys that -- instead of retiring after 10,000 years like his father before him -- he's going to stay on for another ten-millennium term, a furious Adrian and Cassius flee Hades for Earth, freezing the gates of Hell behind them. This prevents the souls of sinners from entering the realm, and without them, Satan quickly begins to physically deteriorate.
This means that it's up to Nicky to travel to Earth and convince his brothers to go home, before their father disintegrates completely. But Adrian and Cassius have already begun turning our world into their own private Hell, beginning with New York (presumably because it was the least work). They use their demonic powers to possess major public and religious figures, and have them promote acts of sin and degradation. Nicky teams up with the awkward Valerie (Patricia Arquette), a talking bulldog named Beefy (voiced by Robert Smigel), and a motley crew of other misfits to save the day.
"Little Nicky" constitutes a series of wildly uneven gags; some of them are hilarious, others fall desperately flat, and many just sit there uncomfortably. It is Adrian's and Cassius' shenanigans which provoke the biggest laughs -- they cause the legal drinking age to be lowered to ten years old, for example, and make Regis Philbin talk about committing homicide on national television (at least, I think Regis was supposed to have been possessed; it's been years since I saw "Live With..." so maybe he's always like that now). Ifans is particularly delicious as the fey, machiavellian Adrian, camping up the screen like a latter-day Dr
Frankenfurter.
The other characters, though, are a largely unimpressive lot. Sandler feels as though he's running in place with Nicky -- the differences between this character and his past roles, such as Bobby Boucher in "The Waterboy" and Robbie Hart in "The Wedding Singer", are fairly minimal, Sandler has shown some capacity for comic range in the past, and he needs to start demonstrating it as part of his movie career soon. Otherwise, he risks quickly winding up in the same has-been hell as Paulie Shore and similar would-be talents. With Nicky, he is playing a character who is simply too soft and timid to match the caustic tone of the film. Instead of being the center of attention like a lead actor should be, Sandler stands on the sidelines for "Little Nicky".
Similarly, characters such as Arquette's Valerie and Nicky's roommate Todd (Allen Covert) feel out of place and underdeveloped, being mostly the butt of staid old jokes. Only Peter Dante and Jonathan Loughran, who play two would-be Satanists ("Devil groupies" might be more appropriate), are particularly funny, and even they get pretty old, pretty fast.
"Little Nicky" is littered with cameo appearances by Sandler's acting colleagues, particularly ex-"Saturday Night Live" castmembers. Some of these work well: Jon Lovitz is amusing as an ill-fate peeping tom, and Reese Witherspoon is enormously charming as a Valley Girl-like angel. But many of them are just bizarre and off-putting -- consider Dana Carvey as an evil referee, and especially Quentin Tarantino, who hams up the screen as a crazy preacher. Even Rodney Dangerfield, who plays Nicky's grandfather Lucifer, can't mine his brief appearances for laughs of any kind. By and large, these cameos are just gratuitous and unnecessary, and detract from the overall flow of the film.
"Little Nicky" basically amounts to a lightweight version of "Dogma", last year's wonderful Kevin Smith religious comedy. It is a movie which certainly has its moments; I admit, I laughed out loud on more than one occasion. But it is frustratingly uneven, and settles more than a few times for the sorts of immature, unfunny gags which have become the staple of major comedies in the past few years. If you're hoping for a devil of a good movie, look elsewhere: "Little Nicky" is a minor demon at best.
Copyright © 2000 Shannon Patrick Sullivan.
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