Movie Review: 'Bedtime Stories'

After dozens of movies, Adam Sandler remains hard to figure out. Most of Sandler's films slavishly follow the mold of most film comedies of the last decade or so: a somewhat funny male star (Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen, Adam Sandler) is dropped into an unfunny premise with a lot of gross-out scenes and poop jokes to make up for the lack of laughs.

In BEDTIME STORIES Sandler is underachiever who grew up in a retro LA motel owned by his late father, an unsuccessful dreamer who sold out to hotel magnate Barry Nottingham (Richard Griffiths). His life is shaken up when his sister, uptight supermom (Courteney Cox, an obvious casting move), loses her job as a school principal when her school is closed. Sandler and a friend Keri Russell) babysit her two children for a week so she can look for a new job.

Like every nanny since Mary Poppins, Sandler wins over the suspicious, but adorable, children with his bedtime stories. At first, the stories seem like silly digressions in which Sandler imagines himself a medieval knight, western hero, etc. (brought to life with extravagant special effects) but soon he notices that episodes in the stories start coming true in his life. As the week progresses, his life becomes a chance at a real fairy tale as he gets a second chance to wrest the hotel from Nottingham and his sycophantic minion (Guy Pearce).

To say Bedtime Stories is uneven is the same as saying that it's an Adam Sandler movie. But it's not bad, and with a few changes it could have been a lot better. The filmmakers are obviously trying to make a sweet, uplifting movie, so there are only a couple of fart jokes, but why do there have to be any?

The happy ending is even sillier and more unrealistic than it ought to be, especially coming after an earlier false ending which is realistic and plausible. But Sandler's innocence about what goes on in the real world is sort of charming, and so is his willingness to make mainstream comedies that are slightly offbeat. Hopefully he'll make a complete movie one day, as well-meaning and well-acted as Bedtime Stories, but with the verisimilitude to make Sandler's fairy tales seem like they really could come true.

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