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The Devil
must have hired a new PR firm to spruce up his image here on
Earth. First, the Great Horned One took the form of a slinky,
sexy supermodel in Bedazzled,
and here, in Little Nicky, Satan is portrayed as a
mild-mannered version of Hugh Hefner, right down to his velvet
robe monogrammed with a big “D.”
Little
Nicky, like Bedazzled,
is rated PG-13, hovers around the 90-minute mark and deals with
a young man thrown into a fish-out-of-water story.
Adam Sandler (Big Daddy) plays the titular Nicky,
one of three sons fathered by the Devil (Harvey Keitel, U-571).
Nicky is no bad ass, especially compared to his two older
brothers, Adrian (Rhys Ifans, The
Replacements) and Cassius (Tiny Lister Jr., Next
Friday). He
might have turned out as evil as his siblings, but Nicky was hit
in the face with a shovel, leaving him with a sluggish brain and
a speech impediment that makes him sound like Renée Zellweger.
The gist of Nicky
goes a little something like this: Satan is retiring and needs
to appoint one of his three sons to rule Hell for the next
10,000 years. When
he fails to make his choice, Adrian and Cassius get pissed off
and head for Earth, which, for some reason, blocks the gates of
Hell and causes the Devil to decompose faster than a leper in an
arm-wrestling contest. The only thing that can save him from falling completely
apart is Nicky, who is instructed to find his brothers and bring
them back within a week.
On Earth,
Nicky needs to constantly dress in warm clothes (a nice touch)
and experiences things like eating and sleeping for the first
time in his life. He
meets and falls for a nerdy, snaggle-toothed design student
named Valerie (Patricia Arquette, Bringing
Out the Dead) and has a great deal of difficulty
tracking down his troublemaking brothers.
Part of
Hollywood’s fondness for Sandler is because his films gross
well while maintaining low budgets (aside from his salary).
Nicky is probably the most expensive film he’s
made. It’s full
of computer-generated animation that seems as foreign to Sandler
films as comedy is to The Michael Richards Show.
And it appears they may have saved some bucks by raiding
the Hell set of Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry.
Nicky
is also full of some wonderful cameo appearances from the likes
of Rodney Dangerfield, Reese Witherspoon, Ozzy Osbourne, Quentin
Tarantino, Dan Marino and a slew of former Saturday Night
Live stars including Dana Carvey, Kevin Nealon, Robert
Smigel, Michael McKean, Jon Lovitz and Rob Schneider – and
that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Some recurring characters from Sandler’s previous films
pop up, too.
Nicky’s
acting isn’t anything to write home about, but that
shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anybody.
It’s certainly funny, and may be Sandler’s most
consistently funny film since Happy Gilmore – which I
consider to be one of the greatest comedies of the ‘90s.
His performance here is paper-thin (like The Waterboy),
and I’d much rather see him play a normal Joe (like Big
Daddy), but Nicky is entertaining enough for that to be
overlooked. Tougher
to ignore is the glaring product placement of a certain fried
chicken chain that is prominently displayed in several scenes.
Nicky
was directed by Steven Brill, who has acted in two of
Sandler’s previous films.
As a director, his only feature film credit is the kiddie
pic Heavyweights, but Brill also penned the scripts for
duds like Ready to Rumble
and The Mighty Ducks trilogy.
Like all of Sandler’s comedies, Nicky was
co-written by Sandler and Tim Herlihy.
And don’t think about leaving the theatre early, or
you’ll miss the funny finale in which you get to find out what
happens to each of the characters.
| 1:24
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for
adult language and violence |
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