50 First Dates

Rating: 9/10 (29 August 2010)

50 First Dates provides viewers with a hysterical comedy about a man who lives in a woman filled life. Henry Roth, played by Adam Sandler, portrays a veterinarian who sleeps with a lot of women, all tourists, then makes up a story and never talks to the tourists again. Many movies could have a man doing this the whole movie and have perfect ratings, but 50 First Dates somehow keeps all of its viewers interested while Henry falls in love with the amnesic Lucy Whitmore. After being told to stay away from the café where Henry first made an impression on Lucy, he gets creative and comes up with crazy ways to get to talk to Lucy for an hour or two each day, even though he almost kills his pet penguin. Alexis, a co-worker of Henry's, is my favorite character, watching the movie, it is hard not to laugh anytime she is on the screen. When Henry tells her to reach down and get a cold fish, she jumps head first into the fish bin to get a cold enough fish. Alexis adds an element to the movie that is hard to be seen in many movies, being a supporting actor it can be hard to have the effect Alexis had on this movie.
My only dislikes of the movie were Henry and Lucy's dad, Marlin's sidekicks. Henry's friend Ula, who was bitten by a shark and believes they are not dangerous unless you touch their private parts, is over the top and takes away from Henry's character at many points throughout the movie. 50 First Dates would definitely have been funny enough without Ula and Lucy's brother Doug. As Marlin Whitmore's sidekick, Doug is worthless. He adds comedy to the movie very rarely, a brother who has a lisp and takes steroids, in theory sounds like he could be funny, but I think Sean Astin was not the right character to play Doug. The character of Doug had a lot of potential but was poorly played by Sean Astin.
Compared to The Waterboy, another Adam Sandler movie, 50 First Dates seems to have a pretty good story line and a lot more sexuality. While The Waterboy begins with a lot of sexual tension, there is only about forty to fifty percent based off of the relationship between Vicki Vallencourt and Bobby Boucher. 50 First Dates is based solely off of Henry and Lucy's sexuality and that is what brings the comedy to the movie. In his attempts to talk to Lucy everyday, many things go wrong such as Ula getting beat up by Lucy with a baseball bat. I would not say that 50 First Dates is better the The Waterboy, but the competition is close, both are very funny and have the means to succeed as movies in Hollywood.