What the hell was that?
Okay, so I was going through Netflix last night and I didn’t know what to watch so, out of complete boredom, I decided to watch the new Adam Sandler/Tom McCarthy collaboration, The Cobbler. Sure Adam Sandler is in it, but Tom McCarthy wrote and directed it and I’ve heard he’s a pretty good director, so it should be good, right? I also know this movie had bad reviews but I try to judge movies myself. Hell, I’ve liked movies critics didn’t like and disliked movies critics loved, so sometimes I don’t agree with them.
But this movie…god is this movie weird!
The movie just has such weird shifts of tone: for the most part, it’s written like a typical Adam Sandler comedy. It has a whimsical, high concept premise, un-pc jokes about black people and transgendered people, and forced sentimentality. But it’s directed more like an episode of Louie or a Woody Allen film, with shots and music that feel more like they’d belong in either Louie or a Woody Allen film than an Adam Sandler film. Also, for hardly any reason whatsoever, it takes a sudden dark turn as a jerky black guy whose one of Adam Sandler’s customers turns out to be, I swear, the leader of a gang that beats up and kills people. To make matters worse, Adam Sandler ends up taking him hostage and killing him. And, later in the movie, another guy that Method Man took hostage tries to kill Adam Sandler when he thinks he’s Method Man, seeing as he put Method Man’s shoes on.
It also goes from being a small-scale light comedy to being a full blown superhero movie at the end, as it turns out that Adam Sandler’s family are “keepers of the soles” or their spinster that gives them the power to turn into people has to be used responsibly and they have to make sure they use it to help people. If it didn’t feel enough like the movie turned into Batman all of a sudden, Adam Sandler and his father have a limo and a butler, despite being friggin’ cobblers!
If the movie didn’t feel like enough of a mess, there’s a forced sub-plot about a developer trying to force an old man out of an apartment so she can make MONEY out of selling the apartment because she’s a greedy corporate scumbag! This sub-plot is barely developed and, whenever it’s re-visited, I pretty much forgot it was even in the film in the first place. If that wasn’t bad enough, the climax of this plot is pretty much treated like the climax of the entire film and, when you think it’s just going to end there, it doesn’t-the movie keeps on going! Why? So we can have Adam kidnapped by that guy Method Man took hostage earlier, just so he can get in a car accident and get saved by his father to learn he’s “the keeper of the soles”! The way the plot of the movie is structured is so meandering and directionless, it feels like it doesn’t know where it wants to go half the time! Hell, there’s even a forced love interest in the form of Melonie Diaz as a girl who wants to help the old man stay in his apartment, whose barely in the film and yet she’s supposed to be the friggin’ love interest!
The movie is also unintentionally creepy. At one point, Adam Sandler puts on his father’s old shoes (I don’t know where he found them) and pretends to be his father. What does he do? He goes on a date with his mother!
And, if it couldn’t get any worse, in the next scene, she dies. Yeah, the movie gets in another dark turn by killing off his mother abruptly! The movie tries to justify it by saying it makes him think how he should use his power, but it just feels like her dying comes out of the middle of nowhere!
Also, Adam gives a rather bizarre performance as, for some reason, he puts on a deep voice. I think he was trying to do a New York/Brooklyn accent but what’s the point when he already has one?!
Anyway, I don’t really recommend this movie. It’s probably not the worst Adam Sandler movie, but it’s just bizarre and a waste of time. It’s nice that Adam is, for once, actually trying to do a good movie but, next time Adam, read the script before doing someone else’s movie! Just because their previous movies were good doesn’t always mean the movie will be good!
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