Tag Archives: Adam Sandler

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Tween Girls: The Musical

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Leo

by Hope Madden

Adam Sandler and the whole TV Funhouse bunch get together for an animated kids’ film about a classroom pet who puts his many years of observing children to good use.

Leo (Sandler) the lizard, along with terrarium pal Squirtle (Bill Burr) the turtle, has lived in the same Florida 5th grade classroom for decades. At 74, and believing his life expectancy merits it, Leo plans to make a break for freedom. Instead, he becomes a kind of life coach to 10-year-olds.

Leo has a lot going for it. Sandler’s soft-hearted comedic presence feels perfectly at home in the classroom, while Burr’s patented “get off my lawn” crankiness offsets things nicely. The story, written by Sandler along with co-director Robert Smigel as well as Sandler’s frequent writing partner Paul Sado, touches on helicopter parenting and other anxieties authentic to modern youngsters.

The premise allows for lots of fun and funny moments as, by helping each kid better understand themselves, Leo comes to recognize his own purpose. There are also wildly random moments of comedy that feel in keeping with the filmmakers’ TV Funhouse origins while helping the film stay fresh.

The downside? Leo the film cannot seem to find its own purpose. It is essentially a musical, although in between songs you will forget that entirely. Nothing about the proceedings suggests the whimsy or theatricality of a musical, and though a couple of the songs are fun, every single number feels stitched in for no reason. Very few of the singers can sing and not one of the songs is memorable enough to merit its inclusion.

Worse still, Leo feels long. Trimming the songs wouldn’t hurt the story and it would seriously benefit the run time.

Sandler’s carved out a mainly mediocre presence in family entertainment, with three Hotel Transylvania films and Hubie Halloween. Earlier this year, he produced and co-starred in the absolute charmer You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah, also for Netflix.

Leo doesn’t reach the heights of YASNITMBM, but it aims higher than the others and frequently endears.

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We’re Gonna Need a Montage

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Hustle

by George Wolf

Adam Sandler’s passion for basketball is fairly well known, so the fact that Hustle is a love letter to the NBA shouldn’t be a huge surprise. And, this being a sports movie, you can expect some familiar benchmarks the film wisely doesn’t shy away from.

But this film about the heart and commitment that’s required in the Association boasts plenty of both from nearly everyone involved, landing Netflix an enjoyable winner.

Sandler plays Stanley Sugerman, a road-weary scout for the Philadelphia 76ers whose devotion to team owner Rex Merrick (Robert Duvall) is finally rewarded with a job on the bench as Assistant Coach.

But with clear shades of the Buss family drama in L.A., Rex’s son Vince (Ben Foster) wrestles control of the team from his sister (Heidi Gardner), and Stan is back living out of a suitcase while he scours the globe for a susperstar.

Writers Will Fetters and Taylor Materne set some nice stakes early, as Vince dangles a return to coaching in front of Stan. The quicker he finds the team a game-changing phenom, the sooner he can be home closer to his wife (Queen Latifah) and daughter (Jordan Hull).

On a gritty playground in Spain, Stan thinks he’s found his unicorn in the 6’9” Bo Cruz (NBA vet Juancho Hernangomez). The talk of big money lures Bo to Philly, but the path to a payday hits some roadblocks, and Bo’s longing for this mom and daughter back home creates some effective character-driven parallels with Stan.

Sandler and Hernangomez share a sweet, funny chemistry, and a constant stream of past and present NBA stars adds plenty of authenticity. Even better is director Jeremiah Zagar’s (We the Animals) skill in framing on-court action with speed, sweat and a tense, in-the-moment feel that gives the standard sports themes some needed vitality.

Hustle is a story of father figures, redemption, perseverance, and leaving your mark. No one’s claiming to re-invent anything here, and the winking nod to an iconic Rocky moment cements a self-awareness that only adds to the film’s charm.

It’s also another example of Sandler’s versatility, and the good that comes from surrounding himself with unique voices. When Sandler cares, he shines.

And he clearly cares about basketball.

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I’m On a Boat

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Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation

by Rachel Willis

These days, whenever an animated movie is released, it’s a near guarantee it will become a franchise. A few of these sequels are as good or better than the originals that spawned them, but most of them aren’t.

There’s nothing inherently problematic with milking successful movies for more material, provided the new stories are able to stand alone. Hotel Transylvania 3 manages to do so, but there are areas of the film that suffer from the same problems as other sequels.

The latest installment in the Hotel Transylvania series introduces us to the centuries-long feud between Dracula and the Van Helsing family. A brief montage shows the audience Abraham Van Helsing’s many failed attempts to destroy Dracula. When it finally seems Van Helsing will no longer be a threat, we’re brought to the present day Hotel Transylvania to catch up with Dracula, his daughter Mavis and their clan of family and friends.

Deciding her dad needs his own vacation based on his more-spastic-than-usual behavior, Mavis books a family trip on a monster cruise. Along for the ride are a number of characters from the previous films, but the new film would have been better served if they’d been left behind in favor of fleshing out the new faces. Aside from Mavis and Dracula, none of the previous films’ characters seem to have been given much thought.

As Dracula, Adam Sandler brings a new aspect to a centuries-old character. Instead of menacing, Dracula is a spaz. While trying to woo the captain of the monster cruise, Ericka, he’s a nervous wreck. It’s an interpretation that serves the franchise well as it provides moments of humor for both children and adults.

Kathryn Hahn as Ericka is a good addition to the series, though her character’s animation is reminiscent of Tweety Bird. She’s a humorous character, and her scenes are among the movie’s best. Hahn plays well against Sandler, and together, they’re the glue that binds the film.

Director Genndy Tartakovsky has helmed all three films in the Hotel Transylvania series, and he’s done well with the material. The latest film will likely appeal to children of all ages, though their parents may surreptitiously check their phones once or twice.





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Uninspired Technophobia

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Men, Women & Children

by Hope Madden

Nobody panic. Jason Reitman has just hit a slump, that’s all. Remain calm.

Sure, the writer/director made his feature film debut with Thank You for Smoking (thank you for making that movie!), and only went upward from there (Juno, Up in the Air, and the underappreciated masterpiece Young Adult). He was bound to waffle a little. Scorsese followed Taxi Driver with New York, New York, for Lord’s sake. It happens.

I’ll admit, I was hoping he was done with this misstepping with the laborious romantic bludgeoning Labor Day, but it appears he has one more overwrought drama in him in Men, Women & Children.

This is basically the same film Henry Alex Rubin made two years ago called Disconnect, which followed teens and parents making terrible decisions and living online instead of off.

MW&C is not the exact same movie, but close enough. Reitman, with co-writer Erin Cressida Wilson (Secretary), reworks Chad Kultgen’s novel about teens and parents and their collective obsession with the wired world.

In many ways, the themes plumbed here are universal to the coming of age film, only in the world inside this film, every anxiety is heightened by the disconnect between reality and our virtual worlds. What the film explores in dozens of ways is our ever-growing loss of intimacy.

It’s not an uninteresting point, just a belabored one. Some individual storylines grow so hyperbolic that even this talented cast cannot rein it in. (We are expected to believe that online porn has so warped one 15-year-old boy that he can no longer get an erection naturally. Even with a flesh and blood girl present. Monkeys immediately fly from butts.)

Judy Greer gives a characteristically unusual and nuanced performance, as do many of her cast mates. Plenty of folks will bristle at the idea of Adam Sandler in an ensemble drama, but in fact, Sandler is only worth watching in independent ensemble dramas. (Please see Punch Drunk Love. Seriously, please see it.)

Greer and Sandler are not alone. The cast – teen and adult – is quite solid, but by the second trip to the hospital I had to just give up on the film. The youngsters are either sociopathic loners or suicidal, and if their parents aren’t cartoonishly unaware, they’re tracking them like criminals or pimping their underwear-clad asses online. Can things really be this dire?

Back to business now, Jason. Come on. Something good this time.

Verdict-2-5-Stars





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Benefitting from Low Expectations

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Blended

by Hope Madden

In 1998, Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore and director Frank Coraci made The Wedding Singer, one of Sandler’s more charming comedies. While Barrymore’s meandering career path has had its hits and misses since then, Coraci’s films have gotten progressively worse. Meanwhile, Sandler’s produced two Grown Ups installments, Jack and Jill, and That’s My Boy, among other affronts to both cinema and good taste.

Can a reunion with the romantic lead and creative drive behind an earlier, moderately enjoyable film rekindle enough chemistry to craft another passably entertaining flick?

Almost.

The group reunites for Blended, an impossibly contrived mash-up of The Parent Trap and Sandler’s 2011 debacle Just Go With It.

Sandler plays Jim, the schlubby but loving widowed father of three girls. Barrymore is Lauren, divorced mom to two boys. As the film opens, Jim and Lauren are on a blind date. They do not like each other at all.

I know – where could this possibly be going?

Do you suppose Jim’s daughters need a make-over…er…I mean mother?

And what about Lauren’s boys? Who will teach them to hit a baseball?

But wait! What if both families wind up accidentally sharing a suite in a South African resort – and during that resort’s Blended Families Celebration?

Do you believe in magic?

If you look beyond the ludicrous premise, and the themes that were relevant in the Seventies, and if you’re not too bothered by the mildly racist depictions of the hotel staff…all right, it’s no gem, but it’s no Jack and Jill, either.

Barrymore’s effortless likability helps a lot, as do relatively sharp cameos from Kevin Nealon, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Jessica Lowe.

Perhaps more importantly, there are no cameos from David Spade, Kevin James or Rob Schneider, so we can at least be thankful for small mercies.

You won’t laugh, but you might offer an anemic chuckle here and there. The film’s heart seems to be in the right place, more or less.

Seriously, did you see Jack and Jill? It’s really hard not to be grateful for Blended.

 

Verdict-2-0-Stars

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPsBx82FN78