Product: 50 First Dates (Widescreen Special Edition) (2004)
Rating: 3.0
WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT COULD HAVE BEEN!
When the humor of Adam Sandler works, it's a mildly pleasing variety, but when it fails, boy does it fall splat on its face. 50 First Dates, sadly, would belong squarely into the latter category if not saved occasionally by the bustling Barrymore.The theme is based on a doozy and marginally original romantic premise -- a marine biologist (Sandler) in Hawaii has to give up his casanova ways when he falls in love with a beautiful young woman (Barrymore) suffering an extreme syndrome of short-term memory loss.Somewhere in its heart, the movie wants to be a touching and structurally innovative love story -- something on the order of "Memento" meets "Groundhog Day" meets "Titanic."But the writing and screenplay are nowhere near spiffy enough to get this thing going and the stars don't have the substance to seduce us into accepting its premise as anything more than an overlong and never-very-funny "Saturday Night Live!" sketch.And whatever credibility the movie achieves as a whimsical romance is regularly smothered by the usual barrage of Sandler-movie jokes about important matters like vomit, bathroom, genitalia, etc.Recommended rental when the DVD makes its rounds, if you are a diehard Sandler or Barrymore fan. Little else to say about this forgettable fare.