That disconnect isn’t unique to Sandler - from the Three Stooges to Jerry Lewis to Mel Brooks to Jim Carrey (save Liar Liar, oddly enough) to MacGruber, there’s been a lot of great comedic work beloved by many but not by reviewers at the time of release. Film critics are in the business of being (and seeming) smart, and that is at odds with Sandler’s intent as a filmmaker. This split arguably stems from the type of movies Sandler chooses to make - big, dumb comedies. It’s the dichotomy that has followed Sandler his whole career: The critics hate him, but audiences love him.
Sandler, who in 2019 marks 30 years of making movies, has 11 Razzie nominations for Worst Actor and 11 acting nominations from the People’s Choice Awards. In the same time period, only two movies that he’s starred in and produced have received higher than a 50 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes - Happy Gilmore and The Wedding Singer (though both are inflated by extremely positive DVD reviews). That’s more than Ben Stiller more than Jim Carrey more than Will Smith more than Tom Cruise. How do you reckon with a career as polarizing as Adam Sandler’s? If you account for inflation, the 55-year-old zhlubbyman comic actor has starred in 18 movies that have each grossed more than $100 million worldwide, beginning in 1995 with Billy Madison.
This article was originally published in 2019 and has been updated to include Murder Mystery 2, Adam Sandler’s latest film.
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