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Waterboy,The/C,A-

Touchstone/1998/90m/WS 1.85
      Adam Sandler continues to confound critics and fans alike. After playing it relatively straight and delivering a surprise hit with The Wedding Singer, the Sandler team went into the huddle and came up with a game plan that made stupidity an art form. Yes, The Waterboy is stupid. It's Stupid with a capital S and that rhymes with success and that means this mess packed them in at the box office. I like Adam Sandler. Happy Gilmore was a real treat. The Wedding Singer was sweet, but The Waterboy--well The Water Boy is often embarrassing and a great deal of the blame must go to Sandler's dumb portrayal of Bobby Boucher. Don't get me wrong. The movie has it's funny moments even when it's aiming at the basest humor.
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A feast fit for a moronİTouchstone

    The story is simplistic enough. Professional wet rag waterboy Boucher mans the sidelines for Louisiana University's top ranked football team. His primary function seems to have fluids poured or sprayed on him or to have various members of the team expectorate into his complex array of water dispensers. When Boucher is suddenly canned from his job by the nasty coach(How did he get the job in the first place?)he heads home to the Bayous to the shelter of his mother home cooking(Roasted whole boa constrictor with an apple in it's mouth, barbecued baby alligators, electrocuted squirrel for dessert). Well, you've got to give the waterboy credit. He picks himself up and finds a job providing liquid to the worst football team in Louisiana history, the Slugs . Before you can say Adam Sandler, Coach Klein of SCLSU discovers Boucher can tackle like Paul Bunyan chopping down a tree. You got the picture now. Boucher becomes the star of the team and in the climatic confrontation gets to cut coach Beaulieu and his Louisiana U boys down to size.
     Adam Sandler plays Bobby Boucher as an aqua-savant. He knows his water but little else. Sandler makes Boucher's speech patterns awfully close to imbecilic and it is not flattering or entertaining. Sandler can do a lot better than this. Even in his weakest screen efforts like Billy Madison, Sandler has not brought his character to such a low state. Kathy Bates plays has her funniest screen moments as Momma Boucher since her role in At Play in the Fields of the Lord. Henry Winkler is just fine as Coach Klein and Fairuza Balk has some fun as Bobby's heart throb.
     Director Frank Coraci makes a good looking movie out of The Waterboy. His cutting is logical, but he working with pedestrian material. The bodacious blues sound track rocks with all the power of a Boucher tackle.
     The details are laid out with perfect simplicity on this DVD of The Waterboy. Every silly expression on a cast of silly boys and girls it as clear as The Waterboy's endless supply of the purest batch of H2O. The color is right on target from the blood orange of the Mud Dog's uniforms to the baby blue of Boucher's outrageous leisure suit. There are lots of surround details spread throughout the home theater environment courtesy of a first rate Dolby Digital 5:1 surround mix. The DVD includes a promo short and a theatrical trailer.