"Sing"in' Sandler....

Rating: 7/10 (15 September 1999)

I'm one of the few people in the world who seems blind to Adam Sandler's charms.
In just about every movie he's been in, he comes across as a shallow, lazy, shiftless bum whose main purpose in life is to make everyone else's life miserable.
The fact that I enjoyed "The Wedding Singer" as much as I did has little to do with Sandler, though, and more to do with the milieu.
Set long ago and far away in the mythic year 1985, Sandler plays the singer of the title, big hair and all, and finds himself falling for a cute waitress (Barrymore, and who can blame him?), who just happens to be engaged to a skirt-chasing lunkhead and is torn between declaring his love or being a good friend and keeping out of things and....
Well, forget the plot. The big drawing card is the setting of the flashy, materialistic, neon-bright world of the Gimmie Decade, as it is so quaintly called. There are DeLoreans, Michael Jackson fashions, Miami Vice fashions, Madonna fashions, guys who look like the lead singer in Dead or Alive (an '80s band, you young punk), "rad" linguistics...and, of course, the music.
Ah, the music! The last good decade for music this century. Check out the soundtrack if you think I'm lying. After the Fire, Kajagoogoo, Culture Club, Berlin - the bands may be gone but the music serves as an open reference point to the decade. And it's good, too! Even when Sandler sings, it's not as bad (in humor terms, not musical terms) as to be expected (at least it's not "Opera Man: The Movie").
Final verdict: good if you're a Sandler fan, better if you're an '80s fan.

Seven stars and a sequined white glove for "The Wedding Singer". Bring back the '80s, man!