The Waterboy (1998)
6/10
Some may consider this Adam Sandlers best, but I don't
3 December 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Bid Daddy. These are just a few of my favorite Adams Sandler films, and his best may I add. But some people consider The Waterboy Sandlers best film ever. Well I'm sorry but I beg to differ. Sandler plays Bobby Boucher Jr. who is considered an idiot because of his annoying accent and slow mind. His devil hating mama pampers him too much and he just got fired from his job as water boy distributer from a big college football team. Bobby then becomes the new water boy for the worst college football team ever The Mud Dogs, being coached by mentally broken down Coach Klien played by Henry Winkler. Bobby gets insulted by his new team mates only for the coach to tell him to stand up for himself. Bobby then pictures the people who has made fun of him in his life on his targets shoulders and tackles them to the ground! Thanks to Bobby's anger tackles, he becomes a tackler for the Mud Dogs and leads them to the Burbon Bowl. Problem is along the way, his momma goes into the hospital with a "broken" heart, Bobby's jail bird girlfriend disrespects him, and his old football team are the ones who will be facing him at the Bowl. What will Bobby do?

I'm not saying this is a bad movie but it is totally off from a great movie. One main problem with the movie is Sandler himself. He does a great job as Bobby except his characters accent (which is more of a stutter, whine, scream, and mentally retarded yelp rolled into one) makes your eardrums cringe every time he speaks. It gets so annoying after half the film that you just can't wait for the movie to pick up the pace and be over with. But if you really get past the voice and look beyond the dumb atmosphere, you fall right into the movie and really enjoy it.

Now Sandler isn't the only character that makes the film "dumb." Every character in this movie is like a rejected Bugs Bunny cartoon character refused to be shown on cable broadcast. First there's Bobby with his nails on a chalk board voice, Coach Klien who likes acting retarded every time he has a bad play thrown, evil Coach Red who is just a stupid jerk, Farmer Fran the assistant coach who is nothing but a dumb Amish farmer who can't even speak right, Mama Boucher who's devil hating persona falls to the ground only after three minutes of depth, Rob Schnider as his classic Townie character who shout's nothing but "You can do it!", and of coarse we have Vickie Valencourt, Bobby's love interest, but she isn't really needed in the movie. Sure she's a nice piece of cast decoration but her character is so annoying. She's a criminal, psychic, and murderer wrapped into one body and the only time she does anything good is to help Bobby at the big football bowl game in some stupid plot turn that only last a mere thirty seconds.

The jokes are real cornball but in a good way. With all the football moments and hard tackling, the jokes are pretty low tack. The special effects are just plane bad looking when Bobby pictures his anger on people's shoulders and the coach pictures babies and pooches. Also the whole football team are nothing but big babies wearing jerseys. One is a dumb playboy, another is a dim witted Frankenstein, another seems like a gay punter who likes to picture KKK members heads on his football before he kicks em', it just gets so stupid after a while. You even get tired of watching this movie all the way up to the big bowl game at the end of the film after seeing all the really bad jokes and seeing Bobby tackle so many people for some stupid reason. Like in one scene, he tackles his professor for saying his mama was wrong about what makes an alligator so mean

What the Waterboy is though is a good time slot filler. If you just want a slow paced dumb comedy, sure you will get a kick out of it. Like I said, it's not a bad movie but it's too stupid and corny just to take seriously. I enjoyed it a little so maybe you could too. I give the Waterboy a 6. If you want Classic Sandler, get Happy Gilmore or Billy Madison. If you want Sandler's second to rate cornball comedies, get this. I still say Happy Gilmore was his best. The Waterboy= C+
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