Step aside Scrooge; Davey Stone has arrived with a bah humbug that will leave you squirting Technicolor out your nostrils. Adam Sandler falls back on the usual characterization that made him popular during his run on SNL. Playing the voice of several characters in this film, Sandler stars as Davey, a former good kid turned bad by reasons left for the movie to explain, now the local troublemaker. Davey commits a crime that should sentence him to jail, but Whitey Duvall (Sandler) convinces the judge to keep with the holiday spirits and allow one more chance to the hateful Davey. Of course, Whitey finds out that this isn’t going to be as easy as he thought.
Is this a classic holiday flick? It’s certainly filled with song, dance, spirit, and reindeer with poop in their teeth. Yes, poop.
You will see Adam Sandler like you’ve never seen him before — animated. The story is of redemption, and finding the good in people in general, a familiar theme in Sandler’s movies. Except for the songs, it’s nothing particularly special. Look forward to those numbers, followed closely by the snappy fun poking and snide remarks at cultures, people, and holiday spirit.
Sandler doesn’t pull any punches here with his humor, even for an animated film. The sight of an old short midget with a hairy butt frozen in turd isn’t something to send the kids to go see. If you never thought you’d see someone peeing his pants visualized in a toon, here you have it.
Strangely enough, Sandler is even better looking in animated form, and supposedly a basketball player that would run circles around the 1992 U.S. Dream Team, but who wouldn’t give themselves an animated make-over if they could? This is Sandler’s own dream wish for Channukkah.
What’s a movie without product placement? Marketing money gets taken care of in one fell swoop during the mall song. Whitey performs it in a good sequence, but in the second round you start to wonder why Davey isn’t locked away in a mental institute for having a support group made up of a band of mall trademarks.
Of course there’s a love interest. Though a three breasted woman is exactly what you’d expect from Sandler, even more desirable is that normal girl working at the doughnut shop. In this case, Jennifer Brodsky (Jackie Titone) used to be the love of Davey’s life. Unfortunately she now hates him completely, but you never know. She has a son, Ben, that in one hilarious scene plays b-ball with Davey for a most intriguing bet only Sandler would think of.
The more freakish characters come in the form of Eleanore and Whitey Duvall. Brother and sister, they have lived with each other for 60 odd years. Both have a birth defect of one normal size foot and the other a couple of sizes smaller. Whitey is the town Samaritan who coaches the local basketball team, and wishes for nothing more than to win the 35th annual town patch and be recognized as a good citizen. Eleanore needs to shave her forehead to prevent a uni-brow, and is a paranoid lady to say the least.
Both are kooky little people, contributing a great deal to the jokes in the movie. If the movie does well, the term “Technical Foul” may be spun at social gatherings and casual talks as ridiculously as “Wassaaaaaap” was two years ago.
All in all, it’s a Sandler movie, with the musical element lending it more quality than it might have deserved otherwise.
