Sandler and Barrymore win hearts again.

Rating: 7/10 (22 June 2004)

"50 First Dates" is a movie far better than I expected. It probably would have made an excellent date movie on first released, and certainly worth a trip to the new release section of your video store.
The basic premise (assuming you haven't read a thousand other post)is Adam Sandler, a Hawaiian ladies' man who tends to aquatic animals for his job and repairs his boat in his spare time, finds himself falling for Drew Barrymore, a young lady with short-term memory loss.
Perhaps most surprising is the movies unwillingness to compromise on the handicap, and working toward a solution that is realistic but sweet and romantic and occasionally heart breaking. It is comparable, easily, to "The Wedding Singer", and at many points shows the actors maturity, though Adam still seems to have difficulty with more extreme sincere sentiment.

I would rate the movie higher, but individual performance are sometimes weak. The total, however, is greater than the sum of its parts, and most people should stay moderately entertained through the movie. The only thing keeping me from rating it an eight is that it doesn't seem to have strong purchase power, though once turned on you're not likely to turn it off.

A 7 on a ten point system and 7.4 on a hundred points.