Adam Sandler continues to enjoy critical success with Uncut Gems and financial success with Hubie Halloween, but the last good movie to rely on his unique style was 2004’s 50 First Dates. Released after a string of financially successful but critically maligned hits for Adam Sandler including Anger Management and Mr. Deeds, 50 First Dates is a sweet, silly rom-com that sees the actor play a commitment-phobic aquarium proprietor who woos Drew Barrymore’s amnesiac artist. He woos her over and over, because Barrymore’s character is afflicted with a rare memory loss disorder which leaves her brain resetting to a specific date every time she falls asleep.

Despite receiving little critical love upon its release and immediately preceding a string of bad films from Sandler, 50 First Dates is a genuinely sweet, funny rom-com that benefits from some charming turns by its leads and a clever, moving premise. Sean Astin provides some stellar comic relief and 50 First Dates succeeds by relying on the alternately sweet and stupid humor Sandler utilized throughout his early years of stardom.

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The Sandler formula came about between the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it was a reliably effective way of guaranteeing comic (and box office) success. The actor’s hits in this period ranged from The Wedding Singer to Happy Gilmore, to The Waterboy to Billy Madison, but despite his prolific output all of these movies had similar elements that made them uniquely Sandler movies. All of them balanced a sweet, cute story with gross-out humor which wasn’t quite as tasteless or R-rated as Judd Apatow or the Farrelly Brother’s output, all of them feature reliable collaborators such as Rob Schneider and David Spade, and all of them are broad comedies with immature protagonists who need to grow to succeed. By this metric, 50 First Dates was the last good "true" Adam Sandler movie, and although there have been good Sandler movies since, there hasn’t been a good classic Sandler comedy.

Lucy and Henry in 50 First Dates

Uncut Gems may have proven that Sandler has serious dramatic chops, but despite being a superb movie the Safdie brothers’ intense drama is nothing like Sandler’s earlier hits. Similarly, The Meyerowitz Stories and Funny People both proved that the actor can pull off dramedies, but they succeeded with critics because of how far they differ from Sandler’s typical style, rather than because they use his sweet/silly tonal balance. Meanwhile the likes of Just Go With It, Blended, and the Grown-ups series all earned critical ire as reviewers felt they were attempts to use the Sandler formula on autopilot, with no soul or inspiration behind them. After twin flops The Ridiculous 6 and Pixels it seemed audiences were sick of the Sandler formula’s lesser efforts too, although the critically disliked but financially successful Murder Mystery and Hubie Halloween showed the actor still has box office appeal, if not much inspiration.

Even the likes of Genndy Tartakovsky's Hotel Transylvania trilogy have been despite, rather than because of, their association with Sandler’s standard style. Sandler's reliance on a crew of friends, silly voices, and gross-out humor are the elements of the family film trilogy which are often singled out for criticism, whereas the stylish animation is often viewed as a saving grace for the Hotel Transylvania movies. The elements that once brought Sandler his stardom — the combination of puerile humor and genuine sweetness—have been missing from the actor’s big-screen output since 50 First Dates, making the underrated rom-com his last truly good, and uniquely Adam Sandler, movie.

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