Review of The Wedding Singer (1998) by Movie G — 23 Aug 2011

Throughout Adam Sandler's career he has highly been looked down upon by critics. He's always been labelled as an immature manchild who plays the same character in every movie. I never understood what all the hate was about. I was grwoing up just around the time Adam Sandler was in his prime and making lots of movies and grew up watching them, altough based on the subject matter I probably shouldn't have been. I will admit that nowadays he's lost his touch. He's tried getting a little more serious with movies like Funny People and Reign Over Me and his comedies aren't that funny anymore, but I still look fondly on his older material. If there was any movie I would have to pick as his finest effort it would almost certainly have to be The Wedding Singer.

The Wedding singer is about, you guessed it, a wedding singer named Robbie Hart (awesome 80s pop starish name). He's recently been left at the alter by his love Linda. Just when he thinks his life is ruined he meets fellow wedding worker Julia. He quickly realises she's the girl for him but she's already engaged to a Don Johnson wannabe named Glenn. Robbie has to win over her affection. Typical stuff.

While the plot is unoriginal it's great for Adam Sandler. At this point Sandler had made Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, & The Waterboy. 3 of the dumbest, most immature movies ever. The Wedding Singer stuck out quickly from the bunch because it was emotional. It had drama in it and actually showed Sandler as a person and not just some guy who could run around yelling.

Sandler is great in this movie. His comic delivery is perfect. He handles a lot of the emotional stuff good aswell. Hew gives Robbie more emotion than almost any character he's played and it works well. Sandler can be a good serious actor, i.e. Punch Drunk Love, but it's the combination with the comedy that makes this his best. He also spends a lot of the movie singing. I went into this expecting his stupid SNL Channukuh song-esque voice but he actually does a great job. He's not an amazing singer, but I guess if he was he wouldn't be a wedding singer. Drew Barrymore plays Julia. Let me get this out of the way first, I love Drew Barrymore. I think is funny, charming, and beautiful and just makes anything she is in better. She's like Sandler, her funny stuff and serious stuff is great, but the appeal is her amazing chemistry with Sandler. The two actually seem like a couple. The rest of the cast consists of regular Sandler co stars like Allen Covert and a always hilarious Steve Buscemi as well as future Ben Stiller wife Christine Taylor and a hilarious cameo by Sandler's fellow SNL star Jon Lovitz.

As I mentioned the movies appeal is it's comedy of drama and comedy, but the real sprinkles on the cake is the 80s setting. While the film is historically innacurate due to the fact that you've got stuff from all through the 80s in 1985, it works as just a general parody of the decade. You've got things like the awesome soundtrack, the clothing, rubiks cubes and other products, DeLoreans, as well as the characters. A lot of them seem like they're trying to be an 80s star. Sammy is Michael Jackson, Julia's siter is Madonna, Sandler's keyboard player George is Boy George, and Glenn is Don Johnson. It's all cheezy as Kraft Dinner but it works awesomely.

The movie's soundtrack is awesome. It's got everything from Journey to Falco, Billy Idol (who has an amazing cameo as himself) to Nena, and just about a million other 80s one hit wonders, and some great original songs that were written by Sandler's character.

On a technical side it's a comedy, what do you expect. Direction is good, camerawork is good, editing is good. Who cares, you laugh at it, that's all that matters.

All in all The Wedding Singer is the best thing Sandler ever made and I could really recommend it to anyone. It's great 80s style combined, funny lines and great chemistry of Sandler and Barrymore make it a romance that the girls will like and a comedy that the guys will like.