BIG DADDY (1999)
2.5/5 stars
Date of Review: April 1st, 2004
REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER (Copyright, 2004)
The more Adam Sandler movies I watch, the more I dislike the guy.
Admittedly, he never bugged me up until projects such as "The
Waterboy," which seem to have scarred his earlier vehicles --
including "Big Daddy," a movie about a slacker who adopts a kid in
order to prove his responsibility to his girlfriend. Predictable
mayhem ensues.
Sonny Koufax (Sandler) is a loser sharing an apartment in New York
City with Kevin (Jon Stewart from Comedy Central's "The Today Show),
who has to visit China and is leaving the place under the care of
Sonny for the week. But the first day of his departure, a small
five-year-old kid named Julian (Cole and Dylan Sprouse) arrives at the
front door with a note, a la Paddington Bear. Kevin appears to be the
boy's father, so Sonny hatches a great plan: He'll take care of the
boy until Kevin returns, and prove to his girlfriend that he is
responsible by passing the kid off as his son.
Sonny is a graduate from law school, which is extremely hard to
believe, considering how dumb he is. When Julian wets the bed, Sonny
grabs some newspaper and lays it down over the sheets. "There 'ya go,
dry sheets," he says, before leaving the room and retreating to his
bedroom.
The image of a caring father-figure that Chaplin invented in "The
Tramp" is rather modernized here. I think Chaplin is probably rolling
about in his grave.
I'm not going to bash "Big Daddy" for teaching bad morals. After all,
there's a reason it's PG-13, and any parent who lets their kids see
this are just about as responsible as Sonny. Too many critics
criticize films for inappropriate subject matter, despite their adult
ratings. Example? There's a scene where Sonny is trying to "weed out"
the bad kids at school -- despite the fact that they're mere
kindergarteners. Sonny sits on a playhouse, circled by little kids,
and says, "You know what else is good? Smoking dope!" It's a very
funny scene to watch in context with the movie, but it could come off
different to younger childrne. Don't let your kids see this movie.
There is a repetitive cameo in "Big Daddy" by Steve Buscemi as a
wandering homeless man. Buscemi often pops up in Sandler's films,
which is surprising, since they're in a completely different range of
acting. I did notice, however, that two films Buscemi has appeared in
support McDonald's -- there's a long gag about the morning breakfast
cut-off in this movie, and John Travolta subtly bashed Burger King in
"Pulp Fiction," which also co-starred Buscemi. Personally, I think
Burger King is much better. But let's not get sidetracked...
The movie relies on Adam Sandler for its hits and misses. The problem
is that he's not as enthusastic here as he was in "Happy Gilmore."
It's one of Sandler's best comedies, which is sort of sad. I wish he'd
make more films like "Punch-Drunk Love." He does have a bit of
potential, and he was OK on "Saturday Night Live," but he's wasting
his career by making these repetitive films that recycle the same
characters and situations, with little twists at all.
Does the movie have laughs? Sure. But they're strongly overpowered by
the misfires. "Big Daddy" is a movie to approach with caution, even as
light entertainment.
- John Ulmer
http://www.wiredonmovies.com
e-mail: johnulmer2003@msn.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 37471 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1268746 X-RT-TitleID: 1087924 X-RT-SourceID: 1382 X-RT-AuthorID: 6769 X-RT-RatingText: 2.5/5
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews