The Waterboy (1998)
Directed by Frank Coraci
Bobby Boucher is a water boy for a struggling college football team. The coach discovers Boucher's hidden rage makes him a tackling machine whose bone-crushing power might vault his team into the playoffs.
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What critics compared The Waterboy to
That's what happens in "The Waterboy" (1998), which I like to believe is a parody of "Forrest Gump" (1994).
Actually, it's kind of a cross between the simple-man-succeeding-against-all-odds good spirit of "Forrest Gump" (with many more elements inspired from Robert Zemeckis' masterpiece: the screwy girl next door -played by the funny and incredibly sexy goth chick Fairuza Balk-, the motherly advice, the football...) and the overmothered-child-who-releases-his-fury aspect of De Palma's "Carrie".
And in a double-take-worthy role, revered actress Sissy Spacek graces the screen as Rod’s mom, a la Kathy Bates in Sandler ’s The Waterboy .
Directory Frank Coraci, veteran of several Adam Sandler comedies ("The Waterboy," "The Wedding Singer"), steers the humor from the broadly slapstick to the logically absurd and back again.
Though the directing is credited to Adam Sandler crony Frank Coraci (Click, The Waterboy) and the writing to five men (including James), Zookeeper feels like the kind of thing that could have issued from the motherboard of Deep Blue’s Hollywood nephew, Shallow Green.
Director Frank Coraci, a veteran of Adam Sandler’s comic style (“The Waterboy”), is more at home with the slapstick than the would-be romance or the movie’s darker subtext.
Director Frank Coraci (The Waterboy) never finds the right tone.
In fact, he directed Click, The Waterboy and The Wedding Singer, which all starred Sandler.
The director, Frank Coraci, made The Waterboy and The Wedding Singer with Sandler in 1998, when Sandler was hungrier and funnier.
And so director Frank Coraci (The Wedding Singer, The Waterboy) and writers Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe (the men behind the very similar Bruce Almighty) fail to really capitalize on their idea.
Directed by Frank Coraci, who teamed with Mr. Sandler on "The Waterboy" and "The Wedding Singer" (still Sandler's best), "Click" wants to teach a lesson about appreciating life.
Director Frank Coraci (Sandler's "The Wedding Singer" and "The Waterboy") does well with the possibilities of the premise in a few scenes and there's some funny topical humor, but the script loses inspiration fast and soon can't think of anywhere to go but low.
The director, Frank Coraci (also of Sandler’s “The Waterboy” and “The Wedding Singer”), has his hands full with the change in tone, and I doubt he’ll please all of Sandler’s fans.
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He could be, arguably, the biggest movie star in the world right now; his films have regularly grossed over $100 million, going all the way back to The Waterboy (1998), except for when he tries more "artistic" movies like Punch-Drunk Love , Spangish , Reign Over Me , or Funny People .
Anyway, the film from frequent Sandler collaborator Frank Coraci (“The Wedding Singer,” “The Waterboy,” “Click”) is a Western, in theory, because it takes place in the American West and it’s a knock-off of “The Magnificent Seven.”
That the coterie of guys responsible for “Click,” “Blended,” “The Waterboy” and their like continue making these films is a travesty.
The only truly funny joke in this fiasco is director Frank Coraci’s clumsy use of expansive Panavision widescreen, with his visuals exhibiting the flat, inert unsightliness that marred his prior Sandler collaborations “The Waterboy,” “Click,” and “Blended.”
As we've come to expect from nearly every Adam Sandler comedy made since 1998's "The Waterboy," there's a heavy emphasis on crudity and cruelty in this film.
But who else but Frank Coraci can produce time-wasters like “Click” and “The Waterboy”?
He may be 43 and a father, but Sandler remains entrenched in the ribald humor that made him a star in the late '90s with such films as Happy Gilmore , Billy Madison and The Waterboy.
At the core of the characters Adam Sandler built his film persona with (Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy) was anger.
With his “golden age” seeming like a bygone era – Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, I even like The Waterboy – and his brief-but-bold dramatic turns feeling more like cliff notes in his career – Punch Drunk Love, Spanglish – I want to be able to like Adam Sandler again.
Unfortunately, those audience members saw Sandler in the glory days of Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore and The Waterboy.
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This is different, and better, than pure caricature there's a deep sadness in his lack of sophistication because the masquerade of adulthood (the antiquing, the extravagant wedding) seems so familiar, creating a layer of depth and feeling that the outlandish scenarios of Billy Madison or The Waterboy can't accomodate.