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Film
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50 First Dates
Roses are red; violets are blue. It’s been over three years; since a good movie starred Drew.
Friday, February 13, 2004
By Susan Michals
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Like most of America’s major holidays, Valen~tine’s Day stands out less as a time to celebrate romance and more as a day to spend extra money on a dozen fresh cut red roses.
Always one to capitalize on an opportunity to score more cash, Hollywood sees February 14th as the perfect launching pad for the romantic comedy. And this year, executives at Sony must be positively giddy over the fact that they have managed to come up with a romantic offering that doubles as an Adam Sandler comedy, virtually guaranteeing even bigger box office bucks than normal this weekend thanks to a demographic that goes well beyond the customary multitude of ladies forcing their men to take them to the movies to celebrate this hallowed day.
Last year’s syrupy sweet Valentine’s Day winner was How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, wherein the beautiful Kate Hudson duked it out with luscious Matthew McConaughey on a Robert Evans-inspired playground of love. While the film was long on slapstick humor, it was also an insightful look at what women really think about the male species, and what they will put up with to get their man. Although it’s not a threat to win any awards this season, it must have still rung true with audiences, because to date it has done a meaningful $100 million plus.
And so we have this year’s entry 50 First Dates, starring that slaphappy comedy guy Adam Sandler along with Charlie’s loopiest Angel, Drew Barrymore. Sandler plays Henry Roth, a vet working at a Hawaiian Marine World. Being that he’s living in vacation central, Henry opts for ‘relationship lite’ when it comes to his women – mainlanders passing through who are willing to give him good lovin’ for usually no more than six nights and seven days.
One day, our non-committal Henry meets Lucy (Ms.Barrymore), another local with a slight defect – she can’t remember anything past 24 hours, due to a horrible car accident. Her brother and father, worried about upsetting the girl, recreate the day of the accident (not the car crash part) over and over daily – re-enacting a birthday celebration, the same dialogue, and eating the same meals. For Henry, all those ‘other’ women evaporate (at least in his mind), and he realizes she’s the girl of his dreams, even if she won’t remember him the day after tomorrow.
The film of course owes much to the classic Bill Murray comedy Groundhog Day, which revolves around the same premise with slight variations. It’s a powerful hook and could have been interesting once again here, if the story itself wasn’t so lame. Within the first ten minutes, we’re subjected to gallons of walrus vomit and a sexually ambiguous veterinarian sidekick, Alexa (Lusia Strus), who says she prefers ‘sausage to taco’.
Her character, for the most part, has no purpose in the film other than to offer a very bad occasional segway. Meanwhile, longtime Sandler sidekick Rob Schneider proves with his portrayal of Ula that he too, like Sandler, is quickly becoming a one-trick pony . The role is nothing more than a caricature cutout – just think pathetic, ugly, occasionally funny as evinced by Schneider.
Sandler continues to show no range whatsoever and seems content to play the familiar role of a likable bumbler that we all root for in the end. This film, like The Waterboy, Big Daddy and Mr. Deeds before it, is the kind of formulaic dribble that Sandler has seemingly trademarked as his very own – he doesn’t seem to care about making good films, just big bucks.
Barrymore too was obviously just looking for a paycheck and an all expense paid trip to Hawaii, as her Lucy is completely one-dimensional and given virtually nothing to do. The most surprising member of this comedic hybrid debacle is Lord of the Rings star Sean Astin as Doug Whitmore, Lucy’s lisping brother who’s hooked on steroids.
This hobbit is obviously fit from climbing the cliffs of Mount Doom on his journey to get rid of that nasty old ring – Astin spends the entire film dressed in the 80’s high school favorite of football half shirts and lycra shorts. Unlike Schneider, Astin’s caricature of a ‘roid snortin’ athlete is somewhat amusing – for the first five minutes or so – but his lines and movements are so cartoonish, it makes you wonder if after this mess, Astin will fire his agents out of sheer embarrassment.
50 First Dates will undoubtedly clean up at the box office this weekend. There is virtually no competition and a lot of guys certainly won’t grimace at being dragged to this one. But once their lady friends see that yummy walrus vomit, they’ll probably be a bit more selective next February 14th – or at least when the next Sandler movie comes to town.
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