MOVIE REVIEW: “50 First Dates”
Grade: C+
“50 First Dates” treats the audience as if it has the same affliction of Lucy (Drew Barrymore) – severe short-term memory loss. As if we haven’t seen all the other Adam Sandler comedies, it recycles the same tired jokes, thinks that obscene old people are funny and features another Russian she-male getting vomited on by a walrus.
OK, so maybe we haven’t seen that one before. But, even though Sandler has the potential to break a new mold, why bother? The second most profitable February opening ever tells Sandler, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
The plot: Lucy crashed into a tree and lost her short-term memory. So now she wakes up every day believing it’s Oct. 13. Any person she meets, including Henry (Sandler), is soon forgotten after a night of sleep. Think “Memento” crossed with “Groundhog Day,” done in modified Sandler style.
What is Sandler style? It’s when the former Saturday Night Live standout plays a whiny-voiced loser who surrounds himself with strange characters to make himself look like an average Joe. Rob Schneider, who is becoming a gross-out comedy veteran, plays a one-eyed, pot-smoking Hawaiian who dresses in fully unbuttoned shirts and shorts that would make the USU women’s volleyball team blush. Also, Schneider has a problem with crack, and how I wish I could tell you that I was referring to the narcotic. Alexa (Lusia Strus,) the transgendered assistant to Sandler’s marine biologist delivers some of the grossest, but funniest lines (“I will now go into your office and become naked.”)
Samwise Gamji, er, Sean Astin, plays a steroid-addicted wimp with a lisp. I think there was an audible gasp from the audience when he first appeared, because they were so used to seeing him as Frodo’s faithful friend in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
There were some nice touches. I liked the part where Sandler’s captain’s log voice-over narration is interrupted by a boating accident.
The short-term memory loss, becoming more common in movies, is taken to more ridiculous levels in the brain clinic scenes. “Ten-Second Tom” made me wonder if these people really exist or only serve as fodder for laughs, like in the embarrassingly predictable bit in which four characters are introduced to a patient who has a 10-second memory. No points for seeing the gag a mile away.
But other than some predictable humor and jokes that are slightly more offensive than funny, the movie in some ways is tamer than other Sandler fare. His character is more amicable and much less hostile than in most movies. The gross-out jokes die down as the plot drags on, and it ends as sweet as possible short of a miracle cure.
Some of the clichs are here, including the maddening “last kiss in the rain.” Is it just me, or do other movie-watchers secretly want on-screen couples to exercise some common sense? Hey, lovers, get indoors and then suck face! Is it more pleasurable to be soaking wet while making out? Sandler and Barrymore seem to think so, and worse yet, they believe that movie audiences agree. I don’t know; maybe it was just an excuse to show how Barrymore would fare in a wet T-shirt contest.
And, maybe it’s not a clich yet, but the scene in which a staged rescue turns brutal is, I’ve een told, lifted from another Sandler film, “Mr. Deeds.”
So, if you’ve appreciated most of the Sandler movies up to this point, this film won’t disappoint. Barrymore plays her usual sunny self, and the supporting cast supplies a moderate amount of laughs. Much of the comedy comes from Arctic animals (in Hawaii!) and maybe this is a sad comment on “50 First Dates.” Most of the animals out-act the humans.
Mark LaRocco is a senior majoring in print/broadcast journalism. Comments may be sent to him at marklarocco@yahoo.com.