Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Small Screen Reviews: The Do-Over
This isn’t a promotion. That’s Adam Sandler taking aim at Netflix audiences so foolish as to watch this movie.
A couple years back, Adam Sandler signed a deal with Netflix to produce four movies. The first of these, The Ridiculous 6, got a big ol’ goose egg on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s right: It got a zero rating. On the bright side, that means Sandler can only go up, right? Enter this year’s offering, The Do-Over, starring Sandler and David Spade. How does this movie fare? Well … let’s just say that, occasionally, your television and streaming reviewer here watches things so that you don’t have to watch them. In this case, you owe me. Owe you me big time.
The concept sounds like something that should make a decent (though maybe not great) action comedy. Fellow SNL alumnus David Spade stars as Charlie, a beta male so beta that he gets beaten up by other beta males. He’s a gamma male. He works as bank manager in a grocery store bank, his hot wife is having a blatantly open affair with her ex-husband while Charlie financially supports said couple’s twin sons, who have less respect for Charlie than Democrats do for the Constitution. I am inserting politics in this discussion because anything is better than this movie.
At his twenty-five year high school reunion (wait … is twenty-five a thing? I thought it was every ten years. Was I snubbed?) Charlie runs into Max, an old friend. Max (Sandler) was that crazy friend so many of us had in our teen years: the guy with no impulse control, strangely violent tendencies, and a career path that was about as promising as a peanut butter and mackerel sandwich. Well, lo and behold, Max reveals he is now an FBI agent and Charlie is soon spending a weekend with his old friend on a yacht where he can forget his miserable life. Then, the boat explodes and Max reveals he faked their deaths so that Charlie and he could start over. Ensuing hilarity is promised but never delivered.
Seriously, it’s a good concept that could make for a passable movie. Instead, we’re treated to disgusting gags about their brief hedonistic life and it just gets worse from there. Every time a layer is peeled from this story, it just gets worse. The jokes are so crude and sophomoric that sophomores may have grounds for a defamation suit. This is what you get when you let Sandler do his own thing without limits. I’d sooner watch Me, Myself, & Irene again; that movie made me gag 75 percent of the time, but at least I sometimes laughed.
And that’s the thing. This movie is supposed to be a comedy. It’s supposed to be laughed at. Instead you just shift in your seat uncomfortably and wish it away. This movie requires a panic room you can flee to so the movie can’t hurt you (And yes, I just blatantly stole a Family Guy gag; this movie is so bad that I can do that and feel like I’m still in good taste). This movie elicited one laugh from me, and that was from when I watched the trailer. That’s it. There was one laugh and they wasted it on the trailer.
I don’t just want my ninety minutes back: I want them back with the interest a loan shark would charge. As far as I can tell, Adam Sandler is waging a personal war against streaming video content and hes’s winning. He’s got two more movies to go, people. Two more. There is no justice in the world.
Published in Entertainment
You were too late to save me from this one.
Sandler’s comedies have always contained loads of crude sexual and bathroom humor, but The Do-Over was very bad. I agree nearly all of the jokes fell flat.
Don’t get put off of all movies Sandler is in. Punch-Drunk Love is the oddest, but one of the most inspirationally romantic movies ever.
As for Netflix, if you have liked any of Sandler’s movie go ahead and watch The Cobbler. It is not a screwball comedy, but it has a lot of heart.
I posted about that here.
I enjoyed the Ridiculous Six, I didn’t expect much but it passed a few hours. The Do-Over was a tad too much, not really enjoyable for me. I do recommend the Cobbler.
I think I will watch this anyway. It sounds so bad that its good. Plus, I can’t really imagine a Sandler / Spade combo that isn’t good for a few crude laughs. I am not a snob. I like {CoC} and fart jokes.
I’d also add Spanglish, though I think this in large part to the fact that like 50 First Dates, it’s not a Sandler vehicle. Sandler is his best when he’s not playing his man-child schtick, and when he’s a supporting character instead of the main one. There’s a line about how the illegal immigrant servant is trapped in the car when Sandler’s throwing one of his tantrums, and she’s thinking that she’s seen real men mad and compared to that Sandler isn’t scary in the least …
As bad as most of Sandler’s comedies are, none of them are as awful as the pretentious Sandler drama Punch-Drunk Love, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Can’t say I’ve seen that one.
Sandler remains a mixed bag for me. He can be in some really good movies, and some really awful ones. I think that applies to most of SNL alumni that tend toward the “Man-Child” type roles. Will Ferrell is another example. I can’t stomach most of his films at all. They’re drek. Then you get films like Everything Must Go where he shines and pulls off a thoughtful movie.
Unfortunately I think they see the Man-Child roles as their money makers, and box office receipts may be confirming just that.
I just checked the IMDB for Everything Must Go.
It’s got Stephen Root in it.
Anything Stephen Root is in is brilliant, by definition.