By
Ian Caruth
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Sandler as the son of Satan is still stupid but funny
Adam Sandler's movies suck - not that there is anything wrong with that.
Detractors point out that Sandler's body of work is one of the most crass and lowbrow oeuvres since the "Porky's" franchise - a mixture of toilet humor, broad sexual innuendo and ridiculous, farcical plotting that is, without exception, an unredeemable aesthetic disaster.
Sandler's movies are also, for the more open-minded, some of the funniest movies among recent releases. He makes movies that, admittedly, appeal to the lowest common denominator - and consequently are regularly eviscerated by snooty critics, who often seem to think that a movie must have some artistic value to be worthwhile.
But what these critics dismiss is the fact that Sandler makes escapist entertainment. He is the eternal class clown, just wanting to make people laugh, regardless of how it is accomplished - and he's also very good at it. When the class clown flings spitballs at the projector screen, his antics should not be dubbed performance art. For the same reason, Sandler's movie work should not be reviewed as cinematic art.
Just in time for Oscar season, Sandler's latest filmic spitball, "Little Nicky," is just as wet and sloppy a gob as any of his previous movies. Drenched with the same saliva of cheap jokes and bizarre comic setpieces, "Little Nicky" shares something else with those movies too - it is frequently hilarious.
The titular Nicky (Sandler) is the son of Satan. Satan (played by a gleefully hammy Harvey Keitel) is a single parent, bravely working full-time and raising three difficult sons in a hellish environment. Looking to choose a successor for the family business, Satan ponders his choices - the Machiavellian Adrian, contentious Cassius and milquetoast Nicky, who just wants to listen to some Sabbath in his room and headbang. The evil Adrian and Cassius playfully torment their mild-mannered younger brother, engaging in time-honored older-brother practices like forcing Nicky to punch himself in the groin and whacking him upside the head with a shovel, giving Nicky a nasty facial tic and a weirdly raspy voice.
When Satan decides to keep his post for another 10,000 years, Adrian and Cassius are righteously pissed and decide to head up to New York to round up enough souls to elect Satan out of office. Satan experiences a drastic case of empty nest syndrome - his body parts begin rotting off, and if his oldest sons do not return home in several days, he will be obliterated. Little Nicky must find and overpower his older brothers, capturing them inside a flask, if he is to save his father.
Nicky is ill-prepared for life above ground, and that is the source of most of the humor - he doesn't know how to eat, he has to find a roommate and his interpersonal skills need work. Whereas most Hell-minded movies, like "End of Days," portray Devil figures as suave sophisticates, Nicky is a big dork. Thankfully, a little talking dog tags along to help Nicky learn how to eat fried chicken, relate to metalhead stoners, woo women and release the hellish evil powers within himself.
"Little Nicky" is easily the most bizarre Adam Sandler movie yet, which is a pretty stunning accomplishment considering the Cajun accents and transvestite flashback scenes of "The Waterboy." Blink-and-you-miss-'em cameos from Quentin Tarantino, Bill Walton and others and random plot jumps make "Little Nicky" seem less like a movie made on purpose and more like a particularly interesting hallucination.
Like a good hallucination, "Little Nicky" is surreal, often really funny and almost totally forgettable. Sandler's movies are not getting any more mature or more complex, and probably never will. Instead of giving everyone in the audience an attempt at art, he is giving his core fans exactly what they want - more Adam Sandler.
