The water is a bit dirty, but you’re probably really thirsty
Bobby Boucher is a unique kid. He is 31 years-old and he lives with his mom still. She is a bit controlling and he is a bit slow. When he gets fired from the only job he knows, being a waterboy, he finds waterboy work at local college that has a beat-up football team. When the football team makes fun of him, much like the prior team did, something snaps inside Bobby. He turns from Waterboy to high-powered linebacker, which results in the decimation of some football players. Struggling to get his team to play, the coach of the team brings Boucher in to help on the defense side of the ball and bring the football team back to prominence. The only thing that stands in Bobby’s way, of course, is his mother.
Okay, before I get into the nitty-gritty of the movie, let me just say this. I know that Ebert gave this movie a half star when he reviewed it. I’m quite aware that most critics hated this film. I’m also aware that sometimes when you go to see a movie you should just go and have fun. This movie is stupid, hell it’s beyond stupid. It makes no sense at times and it has some pretty low grade humor here and there. With that said, the movie is fun to watch on a Saturday night with friends. I’m reviewing the movie as a critic, but I just wanted to let you know at the beginning that the movie wasn’t made to win Academy Awards or make you walk away thinking for a few days about the aesthetics or the script or character development. Simply put, this movie was made on the basis that you enjoy watching dumb humor and that you like Adam Sandler. Anything beyond that and you’re officially stretching its value.
With that said, the movie is incredibly stupid. It has predictable humor that will make you laugh, but you don’t know why. It also has humor that will ask you to understand it years down the road. For example, what is with the Rob Schneider’s character that keeps yelling, “You can do it!” I have never heard a more quoted line in my life. In fact, leave the computer right now, go down the hall to someone at work, at school or wherever the hell you are and say to them, “You can do it.” I guarantee that seven out of ten times you’ll get a Louisiana accented response of “You can do it!” It’s stuff like that which makes the film funny in the weirdest of ways.
It’s just a really silly movie.
What’s even funnier about this film and about critics who hated it is that it was incredibly successful. College and high school kids loved this film. It made over $100 million dollars in the box office and I think this fueled the spite of all the old critics around the country who simply couldn’t stand that the American public embraced this stupid film about a boy who can get angry and play football. I know that Frank Coraci probably didn’t see it coming, and rode the talents of Adam Sandler all the way to the bank. The most baffling part of Coraci’s film is that he actually got Kathy Bates and Henry Winkler to take part in this silliness. Winkler I give more a understanding nod to why he would do this, but Bates is more confusing as she had nothing serious to gain from this. Please don’t assume it was about the money either, I’m sure they weren’t getting the bucks that Sandler was receiving. The reasoning will always be a mystery, but one can only suspect it was simply to have fun. If you take two steps back from the film that is what seems to carry it; it seems to be having fun.
With all this said, you get the film in HD. It looks and sounds good and it has all the right colors (lots of reds, darks and whites) to make it stand out on the blu-ray format. The audio is good, but it’s not like you’re getting an action film here.
Sadly, no special features.