After “Uncut Gems,” some people expected Adam Sandler to continue on his path of making arthouse movies that play more to his strong suits as an actor. Yeah, good luck with that. The Sandman’s lucrative multimillion-dollar Netflix deal is still ongoing, and dumb comedies must continue to be made. The endless career lows that stemmed from his Netflix contract include the likes of “The Ridiculous Six,” “Murder Mystery,” “The Week Of,” “Sandy Wexler,” and “The Do-Over.”
You can add “Hubie Halloween” to that list of duds. There aren’t many laughs to be found in this latest Happy Madison wanker-fest, unless you find the image of June Squibb wearing a t-shirt that says “boner donor” a total hoot. My issue with the last half a dozen movies from the Netflix Sandlerverse is not necessarily the idiocy of it all, although that doesn’t help. It’s more the feeling that the scripts for these stinkers were all written in a half-assed fashion, by men-children playing it too safe to attract younger audiences.
“Hubie Halloween,” set in Salem, is no exception to the rule. In it, Sandler plays a panic-stricken idiot who has an unhealthy obsession with Halloween. However, this will be one he’ll forever remember; Hubie finds out his next-door neighbor (Steve Buscemi) is a werewolf, a psychopath (Rob Schneider) has escaped from a nearby mental institution and people in Salem keep disappearing on a near hourly basis. Of course, since Hubie is a total joke, nobody in Salem takes his warnings seriously.
Given Sandler’s penchant for taking on comedies that have absolutely no backstory to their characters, “Hubie Halloween” is more of the same. This is a movie that relies on childish, PG-conforming gags rather than pushing the envelope of raciness and delivering laughs via semi-competent storytelling (watch 2012’s “That’s My Boy” for a solid example of that — it’s also Sandler’s last “funny” movie). Director Steven Brill, a recurrent Sandler operative, stuffs ‘Hubie’ with more than a dozen characters, including an angry local priest (Michael Chiklis), an adult bully (Ray Liotta), a sexually-frustrated couple (Maya Rudolph and Tim Meadows), and a mullet-sporting cop (Kevin James). All falling flat.
As for Sandler himself, the character of Hubie Dubois has the actor replicating the novel stylings of Bobby Boucher in “The Waterboy,” a deranged, mentally-delayed adult who gets bullied around and, somehow, someway, nabs the attraction of a hottie (here played by “Modern Family” regular Julie Bowen).
Combining Adam Sandler and horror is not necessarily a bad mix, on paper at least, but if this children’s movie is entertaining enough to be harmless, its set pieces and one-off visual gags feel randomly conceived and less-than-effective. The earnestness and unashamedly goofy quality of this latest Sandler endeavor has almost everything I disliked about his worst movies: it feels too safe, too-conforming to the masses. It’s time for another “That’s My Boy;” the more offensive a film is, the more it plays to Sandler’s strengths as a comedic actor. [D+]