Big Daddy

Slacker/law school graduate cannot seem to get himself pumped up to do anything until his girlfriend dumps his sorry ass due to his irresponsibility. So he adopts a child to prove himself to said girlfriend, but suddenly finds himself actually liking the kid more than just a vehicle to cure his immature transgressions.

Despite having seen his grown-up kid character umpteen times in various other Sandler incarnations, this film still managed to be funny and cute, filled with lowest common denominator jokes, an adorable kid and a transparent plot. Now if you’re not a Sandler fan, or have had just about enough of his loveable loser characters– sweet and nice on the inside, unapologetic slackers on the outside, then chuck this one over to your video rentals futures. But if you’re like the rest of us, enjoy Sandler’s idiocy, and subconsciously live vicariously through his “never-wanna-grow-up” adult-goof-boy characters (or Sandler himself…hard to distinguish really), then sit back and enjoy this derivative character recycled in plenty of laugh ’em up humor.

Yes, Sandler’s character screams really loud when he gets upset and cracks people up. Yes, there are plenty of easy piss jokes, barf jokes, gay jokes, hooters jokes, and sports talk peppered throughout this marketable-soundtrack-layered script. Yes, there are no less than three good looking women in this film, who in real life wouldn’t cross the street to acknowledge Sandler’s “if-not-a-movie-star” existence. But hey, this is an Adam Sandler movie and I personally consider him to be a pretty funny dude, despite his lack of creative Mike Myers flair. Unoriginality and weak story aside, I suppose the film’s contrived “emotional” ending also struck me as somewhat artificial, but I guess we had to expect a slightly softer touch in a film which treads superficially over a serious subject (adoption vs group homes).

All in all, the kid’s too darn cute to resist, Sandler does his regular fun-loving schtick, chuckles abound, and many laugh-out loud jokes pop up here and there (Although a lot of them are featured in the trailer.) I’m curious to see how this film does with the general audience, seeing as originality doesn’t seem to be Sandler’s strong suit. Oh yeah, please try and remember to straddle your ears when Sheryl Crow wails into an unnecessary version of the classic Guns ‘N Roses hit “Sweet Child O’ Mine”…youch!

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian