Things People Can't Stand About Adam Sandler Movies

Adam Sandler has emerged as one of the most important figures in the world of comedy over the last three decades. From his breakout roles in "Happy Gilmore" and "Billy Madison" to his critically acclaimed performances in "Hustle" and "Uncut Gems," he has established himself as a huge star in Hollywood. Yet despite all of his success and popularity, Sandler has remained a divisive figure, and someone who splits opinion like almost no one else.

The actor has taken the lead role in dozens of movies and signed lucrative deals with Netflix, but is often criticized by the media and many movie fans turn their noses up at him. Even his very best movies still manage to attract derogatory comments and accusations of laziness and predictability.

It's not hard to see why Sandler's various starring vehicles garner such a reaction — almost all of them share certain elements that make them difficult to watch in one way or another. Even the most enthusiastic follower of the comedian will probably have an issue with some of these things that show up in every one of his films.

While Rob Schneider could be said to be a rising star of the comedy world during the late 1990s and early 2000s, things dipped for the actor quite quickly after that. An alumnus of "Saturday Night Live" from the same time that Sandler worked on the sketch institution, he soon began to appear in a variety of his films, including early cameo roles in "The Waterboy" and "Big Daddy." He later went on to kick off his own solo career with "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo," but has largely fallen into obscurity in recent years, with the actor largely depending on a combination of personal controversies and his parts in Sandler movies to stay in the spotlight.

There are a lot of problems with Schneider being a constant presence in Sandler's films. As noted by Time, he is an avid anti-vaxxer who has spoken out about childhood vaccinations several times throughout his career. According to Vox, the comedian is also the worst-reviewed actor of all time based on an analysis of Metacritic data, giving you some sense of the public perception of his talents. Finally, there's his penchant for portraying characters who represent some sort of ethnic stereotype, whitewashing roles in offensive and lazy ways. As per Screen Crush, these have included playing an Asian priest in "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and a Hawaiian man in "50 First Dates."

Although we've shown that Sandler is actually capable of making crowd-pleasing comedy movies (at least in his earlier days), there's a growing mountain of evidence to suggest that he just might not be all that funny nowadays. A quick glance at his Rotten Tomatoes page shows that very few of his comedies have been well received. The Daily Beast described "Jack and Jill" as the "worst movie ever made," while Variety wrote that "The Ridiculous 6" had hardly any laughs throughout the entire movie. Meanwhile, in a review of "Grown Ups 2," Time Out Magazine said the best moment of the film came in the first five minutes, declaring, "It's all downhill from there."

This has led people like Jakob Barnes of The Digital Fix to plead with Sandler to give up on comedies and stick to more serious roles. "Why does Sandler insist on churning out rubbish year after year," Barnes asked, "when he's proven on multiple occasions that he's actually an incredible dramatic actor?" After all, most ofSandler's best performances have come in dramas and more serious work. Films such as "The Meyerowitz Stories" and "Uncut Gems" proved that Sandler does have some real acting ability and is capable of portraying a non-comic character with pathos and nuance. The comedian's summer 2022 release, the sports drama film "Hustle," has also been lauded by critics and is another example of why Sandler might be better off leaving his funny roles behind.

What humor there is in Sandler's movies can best be described as crude, cringeworthy, and puerile. There's nothing in the way of highbrow comedy in his average vehicle, with the jokes not requiring any real thought or intelligence to understand. According to Business Insider, this is a result of the way that the actor performed on "SNL" before he transitioned to movies, carrying over what had made him a success previously.

This is completely fine in moderation, but when an entire film is built on these types of gags it can quickly get boring — and considering just how much of Sandler's back catalog is based on such humor, the jokes have started to wear a bit thin. Even movies with clever premises can be sunk by this overreliance on one-note humor. For example, in a review of "Click" for the BBC in 2006, Paul Arendt wrote, "[A] potentially intriguing notion is utterly wasted on fart jokes, fat jokes, smack-on-the-head jokes, and soul-sucking sentimentality."

A report by The Washington Post notes how the vulgarity of Sandler's comedies has only increased over time, becoming grosser as the comedian has grown older and his target audience has gotten more mature (in certain senses of the word). Of course, there have also been plenty of lazy stereotypes that are not only humorless, but also highly offensive.

Two particular things that you can be almost certain will happen in every Sandler movie: he will yell and shout as part of some loud angry outburst, and he'll speak in a grating silly voice. Having the protagonist be a screaming and indignant manchild who will become furious at the slightest provocation is sort of a trademark of the actor's comedy characters.

Just look at the scene in "Happy Gilmore" when Happy repeatedly loses his temper and even argues with a golf ball. As a compilation by YouTube user Owenergy shows, Sandler apparently loves to scream, and it's inevitably become dull over the years as audiences grow increasingly irritated by it, rather than finding it amusing.

On the other hand, Sandler has also demonstrated that he can perform a variety of different voices over the years. This may have something to do with his singing ability, which has been put to good effect in many of his movies — particularly "The Wedding Singer" — and gives him more control of the noises coming out of his mouth. Unfortunately, these silly voices are not something that are universally popular, and are actually off putting for a lot of viewers.

It can make movies like "Little Nicky" almost unwatchable, and the parts in films where he puts on a funny voice are usually some of the most uncomfortable moments. There's a good reason why children generally grow out of this kind of comedy as they get older — it simply isn't that funny, and soon gets tiresome for everyone around.

It's hard to reconcile the box office performance of Sandler's filmography with the critical reception each film has received. With Metacritic giving just seven out 67 movies a positive score, you might think that the actor should be considered a box office flop. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. Data from The Numbers reveals that only a very small number of his films have failed to make a profit, while the actor himself has a box office gross of more than $3 billion.

In more recent times, the vast majority of Sandler's movies have been exclusive to Netflix, meaning that they don't have traditional box office grosses to report like his earlier releases. That makes it difficult to determine exactly how financially successful they've been, but his Netflix projects have all received plenty of viewing hours from subscribers, and his original deal in 2014 was worth $250 million, according to IndieWire.

A report by We Got This Covered suggests that an extension could have made the overall agreement worth upwards of $500 million in total. That's an impressive number considering that only "Hustle" and his stand-up special "Adam Sandler: 100% Fresh" have received positive reviews, with the other films almost universally failing to break the 50% mark on Rotten Tomatoes' critic approval rating. Seeing how much money is raked in by so many of his terrible movies might well be infuriating for viewers.