Little Nicky Provides Big Laughs

Before I start talking about Little Nicky, I offer a few general thoughts on Adam Sandler:

1) I think that Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore are among the top ten funniest movies of the last decade. 2) I find that Sandler is least funny when he's doing one of his "voices" (think The Excited Southerner on his lackluster comedy album, What the Hell Happened to Me?) 3) I think that the actor-comedian's last three movies The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy, and Big Daddy sucked. With that in mind, one would probably conjecture that I wouldn't like Little Nicky, Sandler's latest sure-fire box office behemoth. The SNL alum indeed performs the 83-minute-long film with an annoying, muffled speech impediment. And yes, recently Sandler's movies have become increasingly obnoxious and mainstream. Top it all off with a dull tag line-If Your Mom was an Angel and Your Father was the Devil You'd Be Messed Up Too-and you have yourself a motion picture with quite a bit going against it. That said, I immensely enjoyed Little Nicky, a heartwarming story about the devil (Harvey Keitel, a bit out of place in this classless romp) and his three sons: ne'er-do-wells Adrian (Rhys Ifans) and Cassius (Tom Lister) and wimpy, innocent Nicky (Sandler). This isn't your father's hell; Satan rules justly over the condemned souls, respecting that a natural balance must exist between good and evil. However, when Adrain and Cassius make a break for the surface, the natural order of things is disrupted, and it is up to Nicky to save- well, just about everyone.

Okay, so the plot makes little sense. But come on, who plunks down eight bucks to see an Adam Sandler movie with a good plot? The movie is funny, and in this case, that's all that matters. Actually, perhaps I should specify. Sandler himself does not give a particularly strong comedic performance. Like in The Wedding Singer, the actor plays the straight guy surrounded by a bunch of lunatics. Nicky is a goodhearted, likeable little scamp, but rarely are the terms goodhearted and likeable associated with comedy. The supporting cast, however, is terrific and surprisingly quite respectable. Ifans, gleefully overacting, makes a magnificently wicked Adrain. Allen Covert, a Sandler movie staple, is also hilarious as Nicky's flamboyant roommate on earth. Rodney Dangerfield cameos as Satan's sardonic father, who spits out one-liners faster than one can shove can shove a pineapple up Hitler's posterior (don't ask; just see the movie).

Surprisingly, the show is stolen by none other than Reese Witherspoon, who plays Nicky's angelic mother. According to the movie, heaven is a lot like the high school from Clueless, populated by vacuous, bubbly, seraphic teenagers. Witherspoon is perfect for the part. Like in all Sandler movies, the funniest moments in the film are the ones that seem to come out of nowhere (i.e. the hemorrhaging clown in Billy Madison, a comedic gem of the twentieth century). Fortunately, Little Nicky is packed with these random moments, and in the end, they are what make the film a hell of a lot funnier than anything else Sandler has done in a while.