“If I don’t get it, I’m going to come back and do one again that is so bad on purpose,” Adam Sandler said during an interview on the “Howard Stern Show.”
This week, Netflix released Sandler’s new movie, “Hubie Halloween.”
Hubie Dubois, played by Sandler, is a “funny” voiced Halloween fanatic as well as the laughing-stock of Salem, Massachusetts. Dubois is often bullied by both the adults and the teenagers of the town. While doing his usual Halloween routine, Dubois ends up in a mystery involving disappearing people, a possible werewolf and an escaped mental patient. Of course, viewers can also expect plenty of the familiar Sandler story beats and jokes.
While Sandler has given viewers some solid comedy film outings — two of which are pointlessly referenced throughout this film — it is no secret that his films in the last decade or two have failed to show Sandler’s full comedic potential. They oftentimes rely on the same style of jokes, gross-out humor and large ensemble casts filled to the brim with Sandler’s SNL (“Saturday Night Live”) buddies.
“Hubie Halloween” is no exception; however, it is not the worst that Sandler has to offer, especially in terms of his Netflix ventures.
The biggest issue with this movie is the characters. There are three types of characters in the movie: Characters that are either incredibly annoying, mean spirited or terribly bland, with Sandler falling heavily into the annoying category. It is clear that the worst kind of Sandler characters are the ones where the whole joke is that they have a “funny” voice.
One of Hubie’s jokes is that he is very easily scared, which means a lot of the jokes in the movie are just Sandler screaming like an idiot. It would not be a Sandler film without a pointless romance, and this has to be one of the worst ones, completely wasting actress Julie Bowen from the hit-movie, “Happy Gilmore.”
The story as well is all over the place, essentially feeling like one bad joke and cameo after the other. It is all tied together by a flimsy mystery that ends in one of the most ridiculous and forced happy endings I have ever seen, even by Sandler standards.
Overall, “Hubie Halloween” is just another lazy Sandler venture that relies on the same stale-joke formula. The funniest joke in the entire movie does not come until the last 20 minutes, only to be ruined about 30 seconds later. Despite all this, it is still not Sandler’s worst outing.
The movie is just plain bad and feels like Sandler at his phoniest. If you are looking for a solid Sandler film on Netflix, check out “Uncut Gems.”
If you need that Halloween spirit, I recommend “Hotel Transylvania.”
“Hubie Halloween” is streaming now on Netflix.
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