"Big Daddy" has the misfortune of premiering in 1999, when the field for Most Pathetic Film of the Year is loaded with flicks like "Idle Hands" and the runaway winner so far, "Baby Geniuses". But give Adam Sandler credit: He took a decent budget, backing from a historic studio and a couple of well-respected co-stars and managed to come up with the most disgusting, stupid and unwatchable piece of cinematic garbage this summer.
"Big Daddy" is a profanity-laced, bodily-fluid-soaked wasteland of a film with no redeeming value whatsoever. Instead of thoughtful, amusing or touching scenes and dialogue, the viewer is treated to an endless display of urine and vomit cascading forth from the confused little lad at the centre of the proceedings. Basically, this film is a ruder "There's Something About Mary", only this time the butt of jokes is five years old. There's something more than a little disturbing about masses of adults and teenagers paying $8.50 to laugh at a little boy vomiting.
The only reason this film got made, of course, is because it serves a higher purpose as 90 minute recruiting video for Hooters restaurants. The Hooter Girl and "big bust" jokes are funny for the first five minutes, but quickly grow tiresome as Sandler uses them over and over.
Sadly wasted in this film are the significant talents of Rob Schneider and Steve Buscemi, both of whom perform admirably in minor roles. Unfortunately, the two are onscreen far too briefly to provide any sort of counterweight to the sorry mess created by Sandler and co-stars Joey Lauren Adams and Leslie Mann. Adams, who possesses a voice reminiscent of a hysterical toddler, tries desperately to be lovable, but falls far short. Mann's Corrine--whom we are supposed to believe worked her way through medical school as a Hooter Girl--provided the greatest levity of the evening. Her character is far too malicious to have ever succeeded as a waitress, and a Hooters job at that? I've seen a bigger bustline on a Bulgarian gymnast.
Whatever creativity and humanity Adam Sandler had in films like "The Wedding Singer" has been completely lost. With "Big Daddy", he has shown he is completely out of ideas.
"Big Daddy" is a profanity-laced, bodily-fluid-soaked wasteland of a film with no redeeming value whatsoever. Instead of thoughtful, amusing or touching scenes and dialogue, the viewer is treated to an endless display of urine and vomit cascading forth from the confused little lad at the centre of the proceedings. Basically, this film is a ruder "There's Something About Mary", only this time the butt of jokes is five years old. There's something more than a little disturbing about masses of adults and teenagers paying $8.50 to laugh at a little boy vomiting.
The only reason this film got made, of course, is because it serves a higher purpose as 90 minute recruiting video for Hooters restaurants. The Hooter Girl and "big bust" jokes are funny for the first five minutes, but quickly grow tiresome as Sandler uses them over and over.
Sadly wasted in this film are the significant talents of Rob Schneider and Steve Buscemi, both of whom perform admirably in minor roles. Unfortunately, the two are onscreen far too briefly to provide any sort of counterweight to the sorry mess created by Sandler and co-stars Joey Lauren Adams and Leslie Mann. Adams, who possesses a voice reminiscent of a hysterical toddler, tries desperately to be lovable, but falls far short. Mann's Corrine--whom we are supposed to believe worked her way through medical school as a Hooter Girl--provided the greatest levity of the evening. Her character is far too malicious to have ever succeeded as a waitress, and a Hooters job at that? I've seen a bigger bustline on a Bulgarian gymnast.
Whatever creativity and humanity Adam Sandler had in films like "The Wedding Singer" has been completely lost. With "Big Daddy", he has shown he is completely out of ideas.