The Cobbler

Release year: 2014
My Rating: ★★½ out of 5

Tagline: Saving the neighborhood one sole at a time.

Synopsis: Max Simkin repairs shoes in the same New York shop that has been in his family for generations. Disenchanted with the grind of daily life, Max stumbles upon a magical heirloom that allows him to step into the lives of his customers and see the world in a new way. Sometimes walking in another man’s shoes is the only way one can discover who they really are.

The Cobbler is one of the lowest rated Sandler movies on most review sites, and I don't really understand why. Like I'd never call it a good movie, but it's far from his worst. I think this one is way more interesting than most of his other recent movies just from how strange it is.

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Adam Sandler has some sort of magical shoe power that allows him to become whoever the owner is of whatever shoes he's wearing. And this of course leads to some hijinks. You would think this would be comedy, but it really doesn't seem like this is supposed to be played for laughs. But I do have a little fun with most of the people he turns into and how he navigates the lives of each one.

It all feels a lot like that Being John Malkovich movie. That one I think succeeds so much more because of how uncomfortable it made me, and that was exactly the point. Here I don't really feel much of anything. I swear every one of these Sandler movies now is ridiculously average or flat up terrible. This definitely leans on the average side.

The ending of this is stupid though. Skip by this paragraph if you don't want to be spoiled. You ready? 

STEVE BUSCEMI IS HIS DAD IN DISGUISE? And now he's supposed to be some shoe superhero. Sure, man. And his real dad is Dustin Hoffman? They really did not lead into this happening at all. It felt like they were like "Oh shit! We need to come up with an ending for this movie?", and were like "Uh make his dad Steve Buscemi in disguise, and make him a man in a long line of superhero magic cobblers, and now he has to save the world through his cobbling". Yeah, that might've been the dumbest thing they could have come up with.

And I'm sure everyone read that paragraph because who cares about being spoiled for The Cobbler?