It's not supposed to be Billy Wilder...

Rating: Null/10 (20 November 2001)

This is a good comedy for the teenage audiences. It's not on the same level as Woody Allen or Billy Wilder, but it's still good. It reminded me more of one of the lesser Mel Brooks comedies-it's about on that level (HIGH ANXIETY, SILENT MOVIE...pretty good but not great). My only objection is the fairly shameless borrowing of successful elements from past comedies. The story is obviously ripped off from Harold Lloyd's THE FRESHMAN (there was even a lawsuit over this recently), and the Farmer Fran character, while funny, is a blatant rip-off of Claude Ennis Starrett Jr. as Gabby Johnson in Mel Brooks' BLAZING SADDLES (and BLAZING SADDLES is the infinitely more funny film, by the way). All in all, it seems like Sandler had some good set-ups, but the humor seemed way to forced (possibly to make it more accessible to teen audiences). In other words, it cuts right to a punchline without the proper set-up. This is the same problem that I found even worse in Sandler's next picture, BIG DADDY. The best suggestion I could find for Sandler is to spend more time working on quality gags rather than just sort of jumping right into a joke, regardless of whether or not it will work. Even more manic comedies such as CADDYSHACK and ANIMAL HOUSE spend more time on quality writing. The moments of crudity do not work because they are totally unnecessary. Mel Brooks uses blatant vulgarity to actually *spoof* vulgar comedy (like the bean scene in BLAZING SADDLES, which is funny because the sheer crudity goes on for so long. It's not really vulgar comedy but a satire on vulgar comedy there). The crudity here is not even subtle as it would be in a Woody Allen or Billy Wilder comedy.(I won't even compare the writing on a film like this to something by Billy Wilder or Woody Allen, because these are two entirely different leagues.) Finally, THE WATERBOY was a good comedy, but not a great one. It lacks in the writing department, though it is better than many of today's comedies. The end of vaudeville humor in the late 40s really brought on a new form of comedy (nurtured greatly by Jerry Lewis, one of the true pioneers in contemporary comic cinema). One other problem with this film (and the lesser Mel Brooks films, for that matter) is that if a joke is not funny, they can't just skip it and move on. They feel they must keep repeating it throughout the entire film-as though it must sooner or later get a laugh. Also--most importantly--PHYSICAL SLAPSTICK is ONLY funny if it is realisitc (a la Buster Keaton) or *extremely-extremely* exaggerated (ala the 3 Stooges or Keystone cops). Semi-realistic slapstick is just not funny. And this film is filled with it. The stunts are obviously faked, and yet they are not audaciously so. Watch the ending of W.C. Fields' MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE to see some hilariously audaciously faked slapstick. Or, watch Fields' brilliant IT'S A GIFT to see some very realistic slapstick. This film totally misfired in the slapstick department. Then again, perhaps the real masters of physical comedy are all gone (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy). Anyhow, the point of all this is basically that THE WATERBOY succeeds in what it set out to do, which may not be a whole lot, but this is more than can be said for many of today's comedies, and films in general.