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Big Daddy
Columbia Pictures / Sony Pictures Entertainment

Big Daddy reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 41 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.0 out of 10
based on 26 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 6 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for language and some crude humor

Starring Adam Sandler, Joey Lauren Adams, Jon Stewart, Cole Sprouse, Dylan Sprouse, Rob Schneider, Kristy Swanson, and Joseph Bologna

When his girlfriend (Adams) dumps him because he's not committed to having a family, an out-of-luck would-be lawyer (Sandler) adopts a 6-year-old boy in the hopes of winning her back.


GENRE(S): Comedy  
WRITTEN BY: Steve Franks (also story)
Tim Herlihy
Adam Sandler
 
DIRECTED BY: Dennis Dugan  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: March 6, 2001 
Theatrical: June 25, 1999 
RUNNING TIME: 93 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

Winner, Favorite Actor (Sandler), 2000 Blockbuster Entertainment Awards; Winner, Best Comedic Performance (Sandler), 2000 MTV Movie Awards

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

80
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
Sandler's best movie, a surprisingly touching and consistent comedy that finds him reaching out to new audiences without abandoning the transgressive meanness that has enlivened his best work.
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80
Dallas Observer Hal Hinson
It's a hilarious, dumb comedy that's smart enough to be something more. And all it does is make Sandler the most soulful -- and the funniest -- comic in the business.
Read Full Review
70
Variety Robert Koehler
While the loyal male-teen aud core will not be disappointed with the spate of gags just for them, story contains solid date-movie material.
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67
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Much of Big Daddy looks like it was made up on the spot, but Sandler, with his bad-dog eagerness to get caught in the act of misbehaving, pulls you through it.
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63
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Go to this movie for the cheap laughs and bodily fluid jokes -- those are its strengths.
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60
Washington Post Rita Kempley
Sweetly dopey, kid-friendly, if overly contrived comedy.
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60
Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
Sandler is disarming and compelling as Sonny.
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60
Salon.com Mary Elizabeth Williams
It's a concept not without its sweet appeal -- if only it were a little wittier, I might actually be convinced.
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50
Newsweek David Ansen
Just because Sandler's Sonny makes little sense as an actual human being doesn't mean he won't make you laugh.
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50
Film Threat Tom Meek
Hooter babes and the ubiquitous Steve Buscemi is a riot as the mercurial bum on the street.
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50
LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
Sander has turned mediocrity into the triumph of the smug.
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50
San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
In a sense, Sandler is damned if he develops, damned if he devolves. But he needn't apologize for being who he is by turning a goldmine sitcom into a tame "Baby Boom" for guys.
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50
USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
There's some heavy-duty Oedipal stuff going on underneath all the running gags about Hooters restaurants. [25 June 1999, Life, p.8E]
42
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak
Though the cast is talented, the script is a mess. It's essentially a collision of missed opportunities.
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40
TV Guide Ken Fox
It's not nearly as funny as "The Waterboy" and has little of "The Wedding Singer's" goofy charm, but die-hard Adam Sandler fans -- whose numbers are legion -- will find plenty to laugh at.
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40
Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Sandler is less goofy than spitefully self-absorbed, and most of the comedy feels like child abuse.
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40
The New Yorker Bruce Diones
Sandler lacks any kind of discernible comic energy; he's just meandering around the film waiting for something to happen, and almost nothing funny does.
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40
The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
It's a flimsy sentimental comedy with more product plugs and fewer laughs than might have been hoped for.
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40
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
There's no doubt Sandler is talented, but if he persists in believing that, like Elvis, his presence alone covers a multitude of omissions and inconsistencies, he will squander his gift and make a series of forgettable films in the process.
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40
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
For Sandler's core audience of developmentally arrested males, it may all be a little too cute.
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38
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Big Daddy should be reported to the child welfare office.
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38
Chicago Tribune Mark Caro
Recycling the regressive humor of his (Sandler’s) previous films, it piles on so much sentimentality that you wonder how anyone could consider him a renegade. [25 June 1999, Friday, p.A]
30
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
Sandler being Chaplinesque isn't pretty; he's just doing his smart-aleck slacker shtick with a moister eye.
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25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
The film lacks the moronic consistency that graces the Sandlerian oeuvre at its most pristine.
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20
Washington Post Desson Thomson
Dismal. Lame. Not funny.
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0
San Francisco Chronicle Edward Guthmann
Nasty to women, cruel to old people and tosses in a cardboard gay couple for gratuitous laughs. It's also got one of those annoying soundtracks that lays rock music right over the dialogue -- as if it wanted to distract us from it.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jesus M. gave it a10:
This movie rules :D

Pat C. gave it a 4:
Well intentioned. Sandler continually threatens to come across as a genuinely redeemable person, but what would be the point in this slipshod contrivance of a film? And child welfare folks are prone to meddle in the lives of children at the slightest provocation. Lying to those bureaucrats constitutes child abuse.

Jeremy gave it a 3:
The same Adam Sandler film, only this time with a kid even more annoying than his tiresome co-star.

Marc S. gave it a 7:
A lot of good laughs, but definitely not a great film.. however, if you're looking to spend an hour and a half not having to think or worry about anything, check it out. Kudos to the twin child actors who played the boy. They do an excellent job. The story does sound very familiar, but the movie has a certain charm about it that played very well. I would recommend it just for a few laughs, so don't expect very much out of it.

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