From Grown Ups to Pixels: Which bad Adam Sandler movie is the worst Adam Sandler movie?
An in-depth look at the strange career of one of America's most popular comic actors
Pixels, the latest Adam Sandler comedy, hits theaters today, to the customary chorus of critical boos that has greeted pretty much every Adam Sandler movie in the past decade.
For years, Sandler has proven a reliable box-office draw, despite a long string of movies that range from lazy to insufferable. But the past five years have seen his career drop to new lows. Funny People (2009) was the last Adam Sandler movie to arrive anywhere within spitting distance of critical acclaim, so I took an in-depth look at every Adam Sandler movie released since then in an attempt to determine which bad Adam Sandler movie was the worst Adam Sandler movie. These are my findings.
Grown Ups (2010)
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Rotten Tomatoes: 10 percent
Metacritic: 30 out of 100
Following a rare display of self-awareness in Funny People — in which Adam Sandler played George Simmons, an actor/comedian famous for starring in smug, crappy Hollywood movies — Sandler immediately swerved back into smug, crappy Hollywood movies. First on the docket was Grown Ups, which basically amounted to a paid vacation for Sandler and his pals (Kevin James, David Spade, et al.). The laziness of the enterprise even extended to the movie's poster: a ridiculous Photoshop hack job showcasing the five protagonists as they ride down a water slide. Sandler's face looks like it's melting.
Many of the tropes that characterize Sandler's recent oeuvre are on full display here. Absurdly beautiful, endlessly patient wife? Check. (Here, Salma Hayek.) A third act that rapidly shifts into sudden, unearned sentimentality? You bet. People being sprayed in the face with bodily fluids? This time it's breast milk!
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Was it a hit?
A big one! On an inexplicably massive $80 million budget, Grown Ups managed to pull in a whopping $271 million worldwide. Even more importantly, it earned the MTV Movie Award for Best Line from a Movie, for the immortal phrase "I want to get chocolate wasted!"
Is it Sandler's worst?
No. But that definitely doesn't mean you should watch it — unless you're somehow fascinated by the Hollywood equivalent of a slideshow from Adam Sandler's summer vacation.
Just Go with It (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes: 19 percent
Metacritic: 33 out of 100
A remake of 1969's not-that-well-remembered Cactus Flower, Just Go with It casts Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, and Brooklyn Decker in roles originated by Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, and Goldie Hawn. They do not stack up well in the comparison.
Just Go with It's convoluted plot — which follows a man who asks his coworker to pretend to be his wife in an effort to score with another woman — had all the elements of a bubbly, breezy farce on paper. But everyone involved just seems sleepy — eager to cash their checks after a couple months of hanging out in Hawaii. Even the title can only be spoken as an exasperated sigh. "Just go with it," shrugged Sandler and Aniston. "It's February. What else are you going see? Justin Bieber: Never Say Never? Gnomeo and Juliet?"
Was it a hit?
Just Go with It wasn't as big as Grown Ups, but it certainly wasn't a flop. Another $80 million budget, and a very strong $215 million worldwide.
Is it Sandler's worst?
No, but it might be his dullest — even the most diehard "so bad it's good" movie fans will find Just Go with It less baffling than sleep-inducing.
Zookeeper (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes: 14 percent
Metacritic: 30 out of 100
It's easy to imagine Zookeeper as a high-concept Adam Sandler movie in the vein of Click or Bedtime Stories — or barring that, something he could kick down to his frequent costar Rob Schneider, who starred in similar dreck like The Animal and The Hot Chick. Instead, the title role — a zookeeper who discovers animals can speak, and uses this groundbreaking discovery to get advice on hooking up with women — went to fellow Grown Up Kevin James. That leaves Sandler voicing Donald the Monkey in that obnoxious Al Pacino-in-a-Vitamix-blender voice he's been falling back on since Saturday Night Live.
Even by Sandler's standards, Zookeeper is pretty bonkers. This is a movie with a scene in which Kevin James and a gorilla have an earnest conversation about how much they love T.G.I. Friday's. That's so perfectly insane that it's sort of worth seeing — but since you definitely shouldn't watch Zookeeper, let YouTube come to the rescue:
Was it a hit?
Kind of! Despite the presence of a bunch of actual animals — which should really cost more than taking Adam Sandler and his dumb friends to a water park — Zookeeper cost $80 million to produce, and grossed $170 million worldwide.
Is it Sandler's worst?
Not quite — but it's really, really dumb. In the end, it's probably disqualified from contention anyway; it's hard to call it an Adam Sandler movie when Nick Nolte the gorilla and Sylvester Stallone the lion get just as much screen time.
Jack and Jill (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes: 3 percent
Metacritic: 23 out of 100
Grown Ups, Just Go With It, and Zookeeper are not good movies — but it wasn't until Jack and Jill that Adam Sandler's career began to feel like an elaborate prank, or a scientific experiment designed to see just how much obnoxiousness movie audiences were willing to tolerate. Jack and Jill casts Sandler as both of the title characters: Jack, a smug, snarky jerk, and Jill, his shrill caricature of a middle-aged Jewish woman.
Jack and Jill is so colossally misguided that it doubles down on Sandler, allowing him to turn in two equally unlikable performances simultaneously. The movie gives Jill a grab bag of awful qualities, making it pretty much impossible not to hate her, and then shames the audience for finding her irritating. And, of course, there's the bigger problem: There's not a single funny joke in it.
Was it a hit?
Somehow — despite the pressures of two Adam Sandler performances — Jack and Jill managed to shave $1 million from that standard $80 million production budget, coming in at a cool $79 million. At $150 million worldwide, Jack and Jill was still a hit, but careful readers will note that the grosses for Sandler's movies have been trending in the wrong direction since Grown Ups.
Is it Sandler's worst?
If it's not the absolute worst, it's a prime contender. I saw Jack and Jill when it first hit theaters, and I still haven't scrubbed the sight of Al Pacino seducing Adam Sandler from my mind.
That's My Boy (2012)
Rotten Tomatoes: 20 percent
Metacritic: 31 out of 100
That's My Boy started with a pretty inspired bit of casting: Adam Sandler and Andy Samberg as father and son. But compared to Sandler's usual bag of tricks, That's My Boy was something of a gamble: so packed with gross-out humor that it landed an R rating, and a story that's basically impossible not to read as a tacit endorsement for statutory rape.
Sandler plays Donny Berger, an adolescent boy, seduced by his teacher, who winds up getting her pregnant. She goes to prison, and he winds up an emotionally stunted man-child — until he reunites with their estranged son (Samberg). It's a gross premise, and the movie only piles on more grossness from there, including the surprise revelation that Samberg's fiancee has been cheating on him with her brother.
Was it a hit?
Not even close. That's My Boy cost $70 million to produce and grossed a meager $58 million worldwide — Sandler's first out-and-out flop in years.
Is it Sandler's worst?
It's pretty awful — but if you end up trapped on a desert island with nothing but Adam Sandler movies, there's something to be said for the out-and-out tastelessness of That's My Boy. At a bare minimum, it'll keep you more engaged than the fundamental blandness of something like Grown Ups.
Hotel Transylvania (2012)
Rotten Tomatoes: 44 percent
Metacritic: 47 out of 100
Within months of the failure of his adults-only turn in That's My Boy, Sandler scored a hit by swinging in the opposite direction as the voice of Count Dracula in the family flick Hotel Transylvania. Sandler is a perfectly serviceable vampire in a pretty generic kid's movie, and his regular pals — including Kevin James as Frankenstein's Monster and David Spade as the Invisible Man — are a lot less grating in animated form.
Was it a hit?
Absolutely. Produced for $85 million, it netted $358 million worldwide. That's not Pixar money — or even Dreamworks money — but it was more than enough to get a greenlight for Hotel Transylvania 2, coming autumn 2015.
Is it Sandler's worst?
Nah. It's not great, but it's better than any of the Happy Madison crew's live-action joints.
Grown Ups 2 (2013)
Rotten Tomatoes: 7 percent
Metacritic: 19 out of 100
Grown Ups 2 was somehow Sandler's first-ever sequel — and given that the original Grown Ups barely had a plot, it was a bold choice to revisit a movie with absolutely zero unanswered questions. Grown Ups 2 is barely even a movie; what little "action" there is basically consists of Sandler and his friends gadding about town, trading half-hearted insults. There's also a scene where a deer pees in his mouth.
The only interesting thing about Grown Ups 2 is the absence of Rob Schneider, a longtime collaborator who appeared as one of the original Grown Ups. Given the actors' long history, Schneider's absence is weird, and there's still not a satisfying answer for it; when pressed in an interview, Schneider said they were making a "mistake" by cutting him out of the movie, and complained that they should have offered him more money. He then backtracked, citing scheduling issues. Whatever the truth, imagining the weird rift that might have kept Schneider out of Grown Ups 2 is a lot more interesting than watching Grown Ups 2.
Was it a hit?
Afraid so — another $80 million budget, and a $247 million gross. Somebody fast-track Grown Ups 3.
Is it Sandler's worst?
It's definitely worse than the original Grown Ups — but it's too lazy to reach the truly surreal awfulness of something like Jack and Jill.
Blended (2014)
Rotten Tomatoes: 14 percent
Metacritic: 31 out of 100
For Adam Sandler, Blended must have looked like a chance to return to his earlier, more consistent box-office glories. Cut off from his usual frat pack of costars, and re-teaming with perennial rom-com foil Drew Barrymore — whom he previously starred with in 1998's The Wedding Singer and 2004's 50 First Dates — Sandler stars as a widowed dad who winds up on an African safari with a woman who he'd previously met on a disastrous blind date.
Was it a hit?
At a $40 million budget, a $127 million worldwide gross wasn't an embarrassment — but it wasn't anything to brag about, either.
Is it Sandler's worst?
Far from it. At the risk of damning with faint praise, it was nice to see Sandler move away from the fart/burp gags that have defined his modern career — even if Blended's actual charms are pretty muted. Still, I suspect that residual dislike for Sandler may have earned Blended more vitriol than it deserved; it's much better than Just Go with It or That's My Boy, which each earned a larger group of apologists.
Men, Women, & Children (2014)
Rotten Tomatoes: 31 percent
Metacritic: 38 out of 100
In what might be a sign that he's once again getting bored with the broad, bland studio comedies that have made up his recent output, Sandler took a role in Oscar-nominated director Jason Reitman's small-scale ensemble drama Men, Women & Children. Unfortunately, Sandler took the wrong stab at arthouse credibility; Men, Women, & Children is a ludicrously overwrought drama about the dangers of the internet that thinks it has a lot more to say than it actually does.
Was it a hit?
Not even close. This is the kind of movie that needs great reviews, great word-of-mouth, or a bunch of awards nominations to get attention. Men, Women, & Children got none of those things, ultimately grossing $2.2 million on a $16 million budget.
Is it Sandler's worst?
Men, Women, & Children is as tone-deaf as it gets — but it's hard to ding Sandler for stretching his wings a little. This one gets a pass.
The Cobbler (2015)
Rotten Tomatoes: 11 percent
Metacritic: 22 out of 100
Sandler's second recent bid for artistic credibility turned out, incredibly, to be even more misguided than his first. The Cobbler is a singularly strange piece of work — a movie about a cobbler (Sandler) who can literally become any person whose shoes he wears. (Yes, yes — walk a mile in someone else's shoes, etc etc.)
The Cobbler definitely thinks it has something to say, but its unappetizing blend of genres — comedy, drama, fantasy, and even a kind of superhero origin story — might make it the single weirdest movie in Adam Sandler's career. If you've read this far, you know that's saying something.
Was it a hit?
Not by a mile. A $10 million budget is pretty low — especially for a cast that includes Sandler, Dustin Hoffman, and Steve Buscemi — but even for a limited release, $24,000 isn't exactly a box-office hit.
Is it Sandler's worst?
From start to finish, The Cobbler is utterly insane — with a truly jaw-dropping final twist — but again, it's hard to ding Sandler for trying something new. This one also, reluctantly, gets a pass from me.
Pixels (2015)
Rotten Tomatoes: 19 percent
Metacritic: 27 out of 100
And here we are at Pixels, in which giant, real-life versions of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong are trying to take over the world. From Kevin James (playing the U.S. president!) to a beautiful, overqualified love interest — nice to see you, Michelle Monaghan! — most of the classic Sandlerisms apply.
Is it a hit?
Too early to say.
Is it Sandler's worst?
If this experiment has taught me anything, it's that Sandler's "worst" doesn't really matter. Jack & Jill got the worst reviews; Just Go with It is the dullest; That's My Boy is the nastiest; The Cobbler is the strangest. But beyond the presence of Sandler, all of these movies have one thing in common: They're not worth your time. Here's the 2-minute short on which Pixels was based. Adam Sandler is not in it. Why not watch that instead?
Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.