Kevin Nealon

Even with its inane script and limp direction, this film is watchable simply because Drew Barrymore is present to humanise Adam Sandler. How she does this is a mystery, but the fact remains that he's annoyingly unlikeable without her. And history proves the point: Sandler's best-ever performances were in two films opposite Barrymore, 1998's The Wedding Singer and 2004's 50 First Dates. Although this movie isn't quite in that league.

They play Lauren and Jim, who meet on a disastrous blind date and vow never to see each other again. But they end up inadvertently sharing a safari holiday to South Africa when Lauren's best pal (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and Jim's boss cancel a holiday with their five kids. Which is handy since Lauren has two energetic sons (Braxton Beckham and Kyle Red Silverstein) while Jim has three needy daughters (Bella Thorne, Emma Fuhrmann and Alyvia Alyn Lind). Of course, the children are happy to have same-sex role models along, even if Lauren and Jim can't bear to be around each other.

There isn't a split-second when we don't know exactly where this plot is heading, even though the script veers wildly between wacky slapstick mayhem and sappy lesson-learning sentimentality. Every scene is carefully concocted to elicit either laughter or tears, and the manipulative filmmaking occasionally works. Although the movie's funniest moments are offhanded gags that feel improvised between Barrymore and Sandler. The child actors are all decent, carefully cast so each each simplistic character can have his or her corny journey to some sort of personal discovery.

Continue reading: Blended Review

Little Nicky (Adam Sandler) is the devil's third---and least impressive---son. Bested in brains by his brother Adrian (Rhys Ifans) and in strength by his brother Cassius (Tiny Lester), Nicky finds little joy outside of hanging out in his hell-bound bedroom, banging his head to heavy metal favorites. That is, until his father's 10,000-year reign draws to a close and it's time to name the new ruler of Hades.

Continue reading: Little Nicky Review

If John Waters' last few gentler and (slightly) more commercial movies ("Pecker," "Serial Mom," "Cry-Baby") had his fans thinking the once-warped director had lost his edge, that perhaps he was inching toward mainstream repeatability, they need not fear. It was all a ruse.

It seems Waters was only lulling the cinematic establishment into a false sense of security so he could turn around and bite them in the ass with "Cecil B. Demented," a hilarious -- and very much old-school John Waters -- anti-blockbuster romp that chews up and spits out the kind of pandering Hollywood conventions that to toothless, cookie-cutter box office hits.

Cecil B. Demented (Stephen Dorff), you see, is an independent filmmaker of the purest order. His goal: cinematic revolution by any means necessary. If that includes kidnapping one Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith), Hollywood's biggest spoiled bitch/aging bimbo star, and forcing her at gun point to play a lead in his guerilla movie about celluloid terrorists (much like himself), so be it.

Continue reading: Cecil B Demented Review

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