Film

Lazy, simplistic and self-serving are the best ways to describe the bedtime stories Skeeter Bronson (Sandler) tells his niece and nephew, and the words just as aptly apply to the film that showcases them. Downgrading his patented blue-collar raunch to a borderline kid-friendly PG for his first official Disney movie, the former SNL comic and improbable movie star aims for the all-ages demographic using a shameless, clumsy arrogance that confuses the potency of a young imagination with scattershot juvenilia.

Childlike and immature aren’t necessarily interchangeable, but Hollywood conveniently overlooks that fact whenever it bulldozes unsuspecting parents with this kind of box-office shakedown. Adding insult to injury is the classic hack screenwriting crutch that uses “magic” to advance the story (Bronson discovers that, for no discernible reason, aspects of his fanciful bedtime tales come true the day after their telling, and uses them to manipulate his love life and career). Sandler’s enduring success is rooted in his winning ability to fold absurdity into an unsophisticated (or downright simpleminded) experience of the world. If any modern comedian is primed to become a family entertainer, it’s him. All he needs is to stop being so emphatic and start being a little more empathetic.