Well, the last two days have been a bit of a rollercoaster. Going through Happy Madison’s output for the year has led to some pleasant surprises, some unsurprising duds, and some genuinely amazing stuff. And I don’t know if it’s because I’m going into this directly after having my heart torn open by Leo, but this coming-of-age teen flick… it’s alright. Just… alright.
Well, here’s a combination that feels like it was pulled out of an Angry Critic’s nightmares: A Happy Madison animated movie about talking animals. Or maybe just this Angry Critic’s nightmares, since both talking animal movies and Happy Madison productions have been regular targets since this blog started. But for as much shit as I give the both of them when they’re bad, that’s mainly because I still have fond memories of when they were both good. As I got into when I looked at Hubie Halloween, Adam Sandler was part of my childhood and was something of an oddball inspiration as his stock character of the quick-to-anger outsider was a lot like me back then. And talking animal movies exist for a reason, as they make telling stories to kids about characters going through more adult issues easier to deal with, since cute animals are a lot easier to relate to than those old people with their rules and bedtime mandates (in a child’s mind, at least).
Dammit, I knew that getting lucky with Murder Mystery 2 being kind of decent wasn’t going to last. Although honestly, I have some morbid appreciation for this because I didn’t even think they made American comedies like this any more. Both here and for my FilmInk work, I find myself regularly bringing up how modern US comedies seem to spend a lot of time just ad-libbing and riffing instead of actually moving the plot forward or doing anything interesting with the characters. Nowadays, most filmmakers have gotten it into their heads that comedy can help advance a story instead of just grinding it to a halt for little to no reason, but there are some brave little soldiers who are doing their best to keep that style alive.
After the atrocity we dealt with yesterday, I’m in the mood to push my luck, much like a naïve man who just survived a shootout and is now under the impression that nothing can kill him. As such, knowing that even the depths of Happy Madison rarely reach the utter revulsion of Freelance, I’ll be spending today and tomorrow looking at the four HM releases that made it to Netflix.
Over the lifespan of this blog, what began as me going after Happy Madison films for the sake of cheap shots has gradually resulted in me reconnecting with how much Adam Sandler basically ruled my world as a kid. There’s just something about his socially-awkward, hair-trigger, good-natured schtick that still finds ways to warm my neurodivergent heart. Not that that really applies here, though, as this film has Sandler in one of his more dramatic roles, and as the last few years have shown, he’s as much in his element here as he is with his more memetic deliveries and one-liners.
After the pleasant surprise of Hubie Halloween, I could play devil’s advocate and say that I decided to watch this because I thought I could trust it to be good and that Happy Madison were only making good movies now. But that’d be the biggest lie I’ve ever written down: I did this because I wanted to get Happy Madison entirely out of the way for the year as soon as possible, and knowing the distance between David Spade and the Sandman as far as actual talent, there is nothing here that set me up for a good time. And from the director of Spade’s last disaster with Father Of The Year, and the writers of his previous disaster The Do-Over, we have what you would expect from the House of Sandler, only this managed to get under my skin even worse than most.
Much like Hubie, this film feels like a greatest hit’s compilation of what the studio is known for… except this is the inverse of what we got in that film, highlighting all the little things that make these films so insufferable. For a start, the story is framed around a company retreat in Hawaii, which made me wish for a plane crash because that would mean even a modicum of variety in this played-out trope. The main problem with that trope though, beyond the laziness involved, is that because that’s the core of the narrative, the rest of the film exists largely to take up time while the actors riff and let the script drop-kick them across the screen.
Speaking of the actors, Spade continues to manage the monumental task of existing without completely disappearing, an effect amplified by how much Lauren Lapkus is giving her all as the titular Missy. She gives a level of energy that is basically unheard-of in these movies, which would make for a welcome reprieve from the norm if her characterisation wasn’t utter dogshit. She’s basically the Overly Attached Girlfriend meme made manifest, acting every Manic Pixie Dream Girl signifier ever conceived, just without any pretence about how crazy she is. However, rather than being charmingly kooky, her dialogue makes me want to expel my stomach lining all over my laptop because it’s easier to look at.
With the plot’s setup, with Spade’s character wanting to invite his dream girl Missy to the retreat but accidentally texts the titular Missy from a particularly cringey blind date, this was going to be incredibly contrived regardless of the acting pedigree involved. You can almost smell the third-act turn-around ‘I lied, but we really were made for each other’ claptrap from a mile away. That on its own is weak enough, but when combined with how it utilises Missy’s mental health for excruciatingly manipulative ends, it really ticked me off. The intentional misinformation, using potential suicide as the reason for Spade to carry on with the charade, literal brainwashing to benefit the lead, quite a few sex scenes with dubious consent… it feels weird that I don’t give this reaction to most HM movies, but fuck right off with this bullshit.
There is all of one thing I can say was competent, let alone entertaining, and that’s a shadow dancing sequence that looked like it took more preparation and talent to execute than any other moment in the HM Netflix catalogue. But everything else about this is painful, even when grading it on the same curve I did with Hubie Halloween. I hate seeing David Spade coasting on non-genetic nepotism, I hate seeing Jackie Sander dance and sing to The Right Stuff, I hate seeing Lauren try so hard to transcend the horrific writing she’s been saddled with, I hate the non-existent plot, I hate the aggressively stupid humour, but most of all, I hate that I even gave this the time of day. I went into this knowing it was going to be bad, but somehow, I still wasn’t prepared for just how bad.
After Adam Sandler failed to get a nomination for his work on Uncut Gems (and it really speaks to the quality of that performance that it even qualified as a ‘snub’), he went viral with threats that he would go on to make, intentionally, the worst movie ever out of spite. With how much of a critical punching bag he remains to be, it’s quite easy to make jokes about how this is likely the first time he’s given warning for his latest film being terrible… but no. No, I’m not going that route. Instead, I’m going to point out how that kind of self-aware, not-really-taking-itself-seriously humour is actually a pretty good lead-up to yet another solid starring role.
This film’s existence feels like some kind of bad karma.
Like someone on high saw how much better Sean Anders was turning out, and
decided that the world needed more Daddy’s Home backwash to keep things level.
And yet somehow, this film actually makes me miss those flicks.
Say what you will about Adam Sandler (and I have, at great
length in past reviews), but his collaborative deal with Netflix might be one
of the smartest decisions he’s ever made. After all, his films have become so
egregiously not-worth-paying-cinema-ticket-prices-for that pairing them up with
thousands of other, better films as part of a monthly subscription is the
closest he’s gonna get to having an audience again. Okay, over 2017, he showed
some definite signs of improvement, so maybe this film will benefit from that.
Well, it kinda does and it kinda doesn’t.
I hate Rotten Tomatoes. Despite how it’s widely considered
to be a good barometer for how good/bad a film is, it’s surprisingly broken if
you actually look at the scores. Some of the reviews that are listed as Fresh
or Rotten, if you actually look at even the blurbs on the site itself, are
extremely arbitrary, the actual
overall score is tucked away underneath the big percentage rate, and said
percentage only amounts to how many people liked a film vs. disliked a film.
Not how much, just whichever way their opinion falls. For a site that’s meant
to help show an overall opinion, being misleading is probably the worst thing
you can do. However, with that said, they are especially good in one certain
area: The 0%; the films that absolutely no-one
defended. Given how this illustrious list includes films like C Me Dance, Fred:
The Movie, A Thousand Words and Keith Lemon: The Film, easily some of the worst
films I’ve ever seen, that integer still carries a lot of weight. So, what does
that say when today’s subject is only one of the three released by Happy
Madison Productions to have received a 0%? I mean, that’s means that this is
even worse than The Master Of Disguise, That’s My Boy and Paul Blart: Mall Cop,
among so many others? Is this truly that bad? Time to, reluctantly, find out.
