I've heard he's a nice enough guy, which isn't that unbelievable, I guess. And it's really nothing personal, but the longer Adam Sandler's film career goes on, the more I'm annoyed by this guy. And I know I'm not the only one. But why? Where did it all go wrong? It's not our fault. I used to like him like many others from my generation. I mean, he started out terrible with retarded shit like Billy Madison, but after a few more roles, it seemed as though Sandler was coming into his own.
The Wedding Singer was a good movie. I enjoyed The Water Boy at the time, as well. You couldn't pay me to sit through it nowadays, but it was definitely a solid comedy with some decent actors. In the late 90's, Adam Sandler was the man, as far as comedy actors go. But with success comes money. And with money comes the need for more and more money. And like pretty much all his contemporaries, money seems to have been his one and only motivation when choosing roles, throwing all pride and artistic integrity out the window. At some point, Adam Sandler got lazy. And whatever creativity there was, eventually turned to goofy, family friendly repetitivenes. Today, I want to talk about a movie from 2000 called Little Nicky. Perhaps this is where it all went wrong for Mr. Sandler. Then again, perhaps not. Maybe it was that sickeningly sweet natured Mr. Deeds from a couple years later. But I have grown to hate Little Nicky even more for some reason. Let's find out why, shall we?
Sure, I liked it when it came out, being the 20 year old, pot headed Ozzy fan that I was. I liked Adam Sandler back then, and wasn't at all hard to please when it came to comedy. So, it doesn't come as a surprise to me at all that I liked this. A faggy title, for sure. I always knew that. But hey! Ozzy's going to be in it! Can't miss this. I love that guy! And despite the disappointing 10 second appearance from my Heavy Metal idol, I still ended up liking the movie. But almost 17 years later, and not so much anymore. Tastes change, people grow, sense of humor matures. At 20, I totally approved of this. However, now, I would go so far as to say that Little Nicky is Pedo-Hitler, AIDS, and Hillary Clinton rolled into one. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. That sure is a lot of maturing. And you're right. it certainly is!So, for what it's worth, we got ourselves one hell of an all-star cast, here (Haha! get it?). Nobody except Sandler and pals really matter, of course. But this lighthearted P.O.S. flaunts cameos by Quentin Tarantino, Rodney Dangerfield, Reese Witherspoon, Carl Weathers, Henry Winkler, Clint Howard, John Witherspoon, Dana Carvey, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, Michael McKean, and of course, the legendary Rob Schneider. No shit!
Little Nicky also stars Harvey Keitel, Patricia Arquette, Debo Zeus, and that David Bowie guy, who was probably the highlight of it all. The last two mentioned play Sandler's brothers. The three of them are the sons of Satan, "Satan" seems to be more of a title than an entity. Currently, Harvey Keitel's character gets to be Satan. Before that, Lucifer (Rodney Dangerfield) had the honor. I take it he was the first. After rumors of Satan retiring and passing the torch are shot down, Satan's bad seeds, Cassius and Adrian, flee Hell and make plans on corrupting and eventually taking over Earth. This drastic shift in good and evil weakens Satan, making him slowly decay. It's up to his more sweet natured son, Nicky, to get up there and save the day, since he's the only one who might be capable of ending their rampage. Except Nicky is a dim witted pussy and a pushover. so, things are not looking good for Satan, or humanity for that matter.
And naturally, Nicky is transported to New York Shitty because this is an Adam Sandler movie. And that's just how it goes. Nicky takes this magic flask with him, which is meant to trap his brothers. He gets killed regularly, only to get sent back home to try again. Nicky knows nothing of this world or it's many dangers. He's befriended by some Bullldog who has been instructed to watch his back. His voice is stupid, and they keep showing him at strip clubs and fucking other dogs. Unfunny things like this have Adam Sandler's fingerprints all over them. I'm sure he thought that was a real knee slapper. Well, it wasn't, so you can just fuck right off with that!
Nicky moves in with a closet homo played by Allen Covert, who isn't completely unfunny. Nicky also meets a nice girl, played by the usually gorgeous Patricia Arquette, who is not quite so gorgeous in this movie. Probably the bangs. A blossoming romance that hits a temporary roadblock when Nicky gets cock blocked by Adrian. Things look up when Nicky also gets some back up in the form of a couple of Metalheads who are naturally obsessed with Satan, because of course they are. The Metalheads are played by those two friends of Sandler's who aren't Allen Covert. Yeah. Those guys. With the help of his new idiot friends and that ridiculous bastard dog, Nicky finally starts figuring out how to tap into his very much dornamt evil side, so, he can save the world and his father from total destruction.
In my humble opinion, this here is one of the more annoying movies from this era of "outrageous" cluster fuck Comedies which all seem to fancy themselves far funnier than they are. (I'm looking at you, Half Baked and Next Friday!) An era in comedy which time has not been all that kind to. Or maybe some of us just outgrow them quicker than others. It's hard to tell, sometimes. Maybe some of us also simply tire of the same old predictable mainstream chucklefests from guys like Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy, who always seem to take that PC, family friendly route. But I'm sure these guys would have you believe that their decisions to only do family friendly movies is some sort of moral thing. I think we all know it's just about adding more zeros to their paychecks. It's called playing it safe. Shame on you fags for contributing to the downfall of American comedy!
There's one thing about this movie that occured to me during my most recent viewing. Something that could be taken two different ways. That's the fact that Satan and his family are pretty much portrayed as decent people who happen to have a couple bad apples. Now, This family being all nice could be taken as a controversial move, capable of offending the religious fanatics of the world. That sounds fun, but I think we already know these predictable Happy Madison movies well enough by now to know that much thought would never be put into one. In reality, nobody is all that bad in Adam Sandler-Land. Even the cause of all evil and suffering in the world is actually a swell guy. A twat, I say. That's what Adam Sandler has done to himself almost every step of the way since this movie. Sure, he's still a huge star. And, sure, he's now worth $300 Million due to all this cookie cutter nonsense he keeps polluting theaters with. Meanwhile, hundreds of superior efforts will forever go unnoticed. But nothing can change the fact that every time he shows his face in one of these movies, he confirms my original point all over again. Yeah, I said it. Adam Sandler is a cunt! 2/10
