When Bedtime Stories was released in the theater on Christmas Day 2008, everybody in my family wanted to go see it. Though Adam Sandler is a bit hit or miss for me (I enjoyed movies like Click, The Longest Yard, Mr. Deeds and 50 First Dates, but had no interest in Little Nicky, The Waterboy, or Happy Gilmore), Disney + Sandler seems to be a pretty good combination for family fare.
The story of Bedtime Stories revolves around hotel handyman Skeeter Bronson (Sandler), his sister Wendy (Courtney Cox), Wendy's friend Jill (Keri Russell), and Skeeter's niece and nephew Patrick (Jonathan Morgan Heit) and Bobbi (Laura Ann Kesling). Wendy asks Skeeter to babysit her two kids in the evenings while she's out of town for a job interview. Poor Skeeter hasn't seen the kids for a while, so he doesn't quite know how to relate to them. But eventually he starts telling bedtime stories to them before bed, and finds that certain aspects of the stories start coming true.
The movie started more than a bit slowly for me. Jill's character comes across as a heck of a fuddy duddy. And Sandler is just playing the same big kid role that he's played in nearly all of his movies so far. But once the kids get involved, it starts to warm up quickly. The kids and their crazy guinea pig Bugsy (for his big bug eyes) bring us out of the Sandler zone back into the Disney zone.
Surrounding the kids, Sandler, and Russell are a slew of cool and just plain wacky characters played by a great cast. Jonathan Pryce plays Wendy and Skeeter's dad and acts as the narrator for the story. Guy Pearce plays Kendall, the self-absorbed apparent heir to the hotel dynasty of Barry Nottingham (Richard Griffiths, playing an eccentric germaphobe). And he's dating Nottingham's daughter, Violet (Teresa Palmer). Skeeter's best friend is Mickey, played by the always insane Russell Brand. Lucy Lawless plays the heartless Aspen, front desk clerk and co-conspirator with Kendall. And Rob Schneider (Chief Running Mouth) is always fun, playing a fast-talking Native American horse dealer (and later a pickpocket) who gives Skeeter a horse, painted red and called Ferrari.
Article comments
1 - Angel
I found it boring and predictable. Some scenes gave me a chuckle, but it was hardly funny.