Little Nicky
Release year: 2000
My Rating: ★★★ out of 5
Tagline: If your father was the Devil and your mother was an angel, you’d be messed up too.
Synopsis: After the lord of darkness decides he will not cede his throne to any of his three sons, the two most powerful of them escape to Earth to create a kingdom for themselves. This action closes the portal filtering sinful souls to Hell and causes Satan to wither away. He must send his most weak but beloved son, Little Nicky, to Earth to return his brothers to Hell.
And we have made it to Adam Sandler's first major flop of his career. Critics and audiences are not kind to this movie, so what is it about Little Nicky that makes most people consider it a failure.
I think what happened here is Sandler thought there were no limits to how silly he could get with one of his movies and people would still enjoy it. And up to this point, that was true. But I think this movie just ended up being a bit too strange to get general audiences on board. But hey, I'm no general audience, and I had a great time with this movie!
Is it crazy to say that this is like an Adam Sandler Avengers movie. That may sound ludicrous, but here's what I mean by that. There are so many homages to all of Sandler's filmography up to this point. You get characters from Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and The Waterboy that give cameos. The movie has a bonkers plot that feels like only Adam Sandler can star in. Basically what I'm saying is this is the ultimate Sandler movie resulting from a decade of hit after hit.
I love Adam Sandler in this! It's not like his performance is Oscar worthy, but he is having the time of his life. He does this voice and makes this face that are so stupid that it looks like whenever he's talking, he's about to burst out laughing. You can see the smile creeping through by the end of each line, and you can't help but be delighted from it. It's like watching a shitty film made by your best friend who just makes joke after joke tailor made to make you both laugh.
Rodney Dangerfield in “Little Nicky”
The cast in this movie is insane! We have academy award winner Patricia Arquette as the love interest. Scorsese staple Harvey Keitel, and Rodney Dangerfield in one of his final rolls. Then we get appearances from Reese Witherspoon, Quentin Tarantino, John Lovitz, Chuck McGill, Dana Carvey, Ozzy Osbourne, Regis, and Henry Winkler. So many people who you can just tell thought it would be a blast to be here, and they are all having so much fun.
Sure I haven't talked about the plot that much, but that doesn't matter. The plot is just a vehicle for everyone to make some stupid jokes. This might be the only Sandler movie dumber than The Waterboy, but I was happy to turn my brain off for this. Call me crazy, I don't even hate the talking dog that much!
I think Little Nicky was my reward for watching every Adam Sandler movie up to this point. I can understand why people don't like it, especially if they haven't seen many more of his movies, but for me this was the ultimate culmination of doing Sandlerfest over the course of the first 3 months of 2022. How much can I say it's like an Avengers movie? It's like you get the best payoff when you've watched the whole ASCU (Adam Sandler Cinematic Universe). I could never call this a good movie, but it is a movie I absolutely love!
