He used to be the biggest movie star in Hollywood. Everything he touched was pure gold and you couldn't get through a holiday season without quoting his material ad nauseam.
Now, his go-to move seems to be latching on to an up-and-comer (Seth Rogen, Andy Samberg) and making the same silly voices that we were tired of after watching Billy Madison on VHS for the 15th time.
To his credit, Sandler knows who he is. He never tried to step too far out of his comfort zone — The Longest Yard is probably the most "dramatic" he's ever gone, and that's no The Truman Show — but he also seems to have run the well dry.
Maybe he's just stuck in a rut with the Happy Madison production crew (Bucky Larsen, anyone?) but it's going to take more than the Little Nicky voice and a fresh haircut to break out of it. Hopefully he can figure out how to do that soon.
So with that, let's get to some trailers in this week's "Spoiler Alert."
That's My Boy
Listen, Mr. Samberg — can I call you Andy? I know it probably seemed like a good idea on paper to star alongside Sandler. You got to meet Leighton Meester, too. But you're not on Saturday Night Live anymore — there's no safety net, no fallback plan. You are a movie star now, you are talented and you have talented friends. You can do better than this.
Flight
What's going on with the music in this trailer? It's happy, then there's a plane crash, then the Rolling Stones make everything sound upbeat while the actual content within suggests that Denzel Washington has done something very, very bad despite saving everyone's life.
Maybe it's just because I'm a huge LOST fan, but I can't be the only one getting that vibe, considering this movie features a plane crash and a story that appears to be told through flashbacks, right? Oh well. John Goodman has a ponytail and that's pretty awesome, so let's throw an Oscar nomination everyone's way and move on.
Rock of Ages
What's Tom Cruise doing in this movie? I expected this to be some cute Tropic Thunder-like "Hey look, Tom Cruise is the rock singer, haha" cameo, but he looks like the actual star of this film.
Is his character supposed to always look exhausted and on the verge of a heart attack? Is Cruise actually singing? Is this an elaborate rip-off of Footloose? The answers to these questions and more will be revealed in the movie, but I'm guessing that second one is no. If not, hey, more power to him.
Ice Age 4: Continental Drift
What the — they're still making Ice Age movies? My goodness. Were any of the sequels good?
To be fair, we as a society can do worse than "pirate animals," so I'm on board. It's actually pretty surprising this hasn't been done already. Avast, ye prehistoric creatures!
