Adam Sandler's star has fallen. From my perspective I never understood why his movies made so much money to start with, and I don't understand why they've fallen out of favor. The humor hasn't changed all that much. I guess it's easier to get laughs when you're young.
The movie is erratic. The Wexler character is not very sympathetic, which makes it hard to get into the movie. He's annoying and with few redeeming qualities. Apparently he's a parody of Sandler's own agent, but for those of us not in on the joke, he comes across as annoying.
I pushed myself to get through the movie, and I did find some redeeming features. The most obvious is Jennifer Hudson's singing. She's terrific. After that, I started paying more attention to the supporting characters, esp. Kevin James's bad ventriloquist, Colin Quinn's terrible stand-up comedian, and Nick Swardson's dreadful performance stuntman. Swardson was legitimately funny.
Aside from that, there's an exercise in seeing just how big the cast is. Henry Winkler! George Wendt! Penn Jillette! Jay Leno! Jimmy Kimmel! And more! I guess Sandler threw a party, invited everybody he got along with in Hollywood, and they all got to make "testimonials" to Wexler. Which brings me back to Wexler himself.
The movie's success rides on Sandler's performance, and though a lot of the writing is good, it's hard to get past the fact that Wexler is really, really, annoying. So the movie doesn't really work. But it's not as dreadful as a lot of the critics here are claiming it is. It isn't a 1-star film. It's just mediocre.
The movie is erratic. The Wexler character is not very sympathetic, which makes it hard to get into the movie. He's annoying and with few redeeming qualities. Apparently he's a parody of Sandler's own agent, but for those of us not in on the joke, he comes across as annoying.
I pushed myself to get through the movie, and I did find some redeeming features. The most obvious is Jennifer Hudson's singing. She's terrific. After that, I started paying more attention to the supporting characters, esp. Kevin James's bad ventriloquist, Colin Quinn's terrible stand-up comedian, and Nick Swardson's dreadful performance stuntman. Swardson was legitimately funny.
Aside from that, there's an exercise in seeing just how big the cast is. Henry Winkler! George Wendt! Penn Jillette! Jay Leno! Jimmy Kimmel! And more! I guess Sandler threw a party, invited everybody he got along with in Hollywood, and they all got to make "testimonials" to Wexler. Which brings me back to Wexler himself.
The movie's success rides on Sandler's performance, and though a lot of the writing is good, it's hard to get past the fact that Wexler is really, really, annoying. So the movie doesn't really work. But it's not as dreadful as a lot of the critics here are claiming it is. It isn't a 1-star film. It's just mediocre.