Austin Stout

As if searching for some nonexistent middle ground between the cartoon raunchiness of "South Park" and the innocuous banality of a cheap children's Christmas special, Adam Sandler has now weaseled his way into the animation and holiday genres with "Adam Sandler's 8 Crazy Nights."

A sub-formulaic slap in the face to seasonal cheer, it's a movie about an acrimonious, 33-year-old layabout with Sandler's voice and Sandler's doltish manner whom we're also supposed to laugh along with as he makes fun of fat little kids and kicks port-a-potties down snowy hills with people inside. But the movie also expects us to view him as a big jerk with a tormented soul who is badly in need of a "Christmas Carol"-type personality breakthrough.

Sentenced after a drunken rampage to doing community service as a youth basketball referee (depicted in exactly one scene of the movie), the cartoon Sandler is taken in by a fellow ref who feels sorry for him -- a kindly, seizure-prone, 70-year-old midget gimp with a shrill, whimpering, falsetto voice (also Sandler's). But he treats the old man (and everyone else) like garbage until he finally has an overdue cry about how his parents died when he was 12, then sees the error of his ways just before the credits roll.

Continue reading: Adam Sandler's 8 Crazy Nights Review