Bedtime Stories: Review By B. Alan Orange

This is the same kind of live-action Disney movie they’ve been making since the late sixties. Their signature vibe is regurgitated on a playful story that includes kids, a silly animal, and a box office draw (this time in the form of frat daddy favorite Adam Sandler). If you liked The Game Plan or The Pacifier, or Freaky Friday, you will enjoy this too. It has come sliding off the same cookie cutter conveyer belt. And it tastes just like Disney candy. Don’t question its intent or meaning for too long, or you will become quite stymied. It’s meant as a Christmas day diversion, and will be devoured as such. A late after-morning present that only comes apart when you turn it upside down and shake the batteries out of it, Bedtime Stories should keep you and your children quite entertained well after you’ve put away that plate of ham and cranberry sauce.

The high concept script was written by Disney apprentice Matt Lopez and longtime Sandler co-conspirator Tim Herlihy. It’s a simple idea, and a pretty neat one at that. The bedtime stories told by a crazy uncle start to come true. There’s the pitch. You’ve got yourself a Disney movie. And it’s the perfect vehicle for Sandler’s goofy aura. It’s just too bad that neither writer tried to extrapolate on that initial idea. They give us the core concept sold through with enough enthusiasm to make the film somewhat special. But they never follow through on their promise. They toss this ludicrous idea out there. It’s played with. But then the idea is abandoned and we’re never quite sure what the Hell is going on. Basically, the movie is calling its built-in audience stupid. And the narrative is so confident in itself; it doesn’t think we’ll question it. Maybe most people won’t mind that. But Bedtime Stories left me scratching my head.

Are these tall tales really coming to life? Or not? That is the unanswered question. And it sort of bugs me.

The first twenty minutes of the film are slow. It takes awhile to get us to that first bedtime story. Director Adam Shankman takes his sweet time setting up these characters and ideas. Problem is, they don’t really need this much explanation at all. And it feels like the editor is stalling for time. We don’t really need that extra cushion. The movie is damn near two hours in length as it is. Some excess fat could have been trimmed from this big boned vanity project. We quickly discover that Sandler’s Skeeter (complete with man-child name) is a handyman at a hotel that his dad used to run. Long ago, he was promised the chance to run the place when he grew up. But since the time of his childhood, this small family oriented vacation spot has become a huge chain not unlike the Hilton Resorts. And it comes complete with a Paris knock-off, played by the fetching Teresa Palmer. There are a few boring scenes of exposition, a cinematic tool the Sandler camp has never been comfortable with, and it seems like it takes two and a half days to get to the main cusp of the plot: Skeeter is given the chance to come up with a new hotel theme. But he must compete with the almost unrecognizable Guy Pearce in a contest that will leave the best man standing as Hotel manager. The rest is pretty easy to figure out from there.

While Skeeter’s sister, played by Courtney Cox, is away on a job interview, the handyman is left to look after her two kids (hmm, smells of Uncle Buck, doesn’t it?). A boy and a girl. Generic Disney fops that you could pretty much plug into just about any of their past movies. Skeeter hasn’t really been around too many kids. And he doesn’t know what to do with them. So he starts telling them bedtime stories. And that’s really when the film starts to come to life. Geez, did it take long enough to get to the fun stuff? Yeah, these little bon mots allow Sandler to play around in all of the genres he hasn’t been able to rape yet. This is where the gold of the movie lies, and its like getting Sandler’s next twelve comedies all rolled into one. We see him as a cowboy, a Roman gladiator, a space pirate, and a noble knight. Each tale serves as its own short film, and these meager stretches of quality kid lit celluloid are tight enough as to not wear out their welcome.

Every morning after one of these stories is told, certain aspects of them start to come true. And Sandler grabs onto this idea as a means to win himself the Hotel theme contest. Which is wrong on many different levels. Instead of working hard to come up with his own idea, he relies on this weird, unexplained black magic. And it’s all good clean fun from there on out. Lessons are learned. Jokes are tossed about. But, the film sets itself up for ideas it can’t handle. The first time something extraordinaire happens to Skeeter, it is explained away by coincidence. You’ll remember the raining gumball scene from the trailer. Well, the downpour is coming from a crashed semi truck stalled on the off ramp overhead. It makes sense. But are these things happening by chance? Or not?

Let’s face it. The film doesn’t know. The writers never took the time to figure that part out. At first, a lot of the bedtime story elements that Skeeter later encounters in his real life are sold as minor flukes. But then some seem to be quite magical. There never is an explanation as to why these things are happening. Are the kids from Witch Mountain? Do they possess mystical powers? Is their mom a secret spell-casting sorcerer? Nope. When that last story is whispered into the night, its powers seem to die shortly there after. The kids are none the wiser, and maybe Skeeter is mildly retarded. With that faux-hawk, that’s the best explenation I can think of. Its certainly lazy storytelling on the screenwriters’ part. But then again, this is an Adam Sandler movie. If we’re going to question its solidity, we’re going to have to run back through his entire catalogue and take notes. Adam has never sacrificed a joke for narrative sensibility.

Sandler teaming up with Disney might seem like an odd fit. But its not, really. The two franchise machines work quite well together, and Adam’s neutered comedy actually works better when pitched at the quaint level of children. The only real victim here is Russell Brand, who plays Sandler’s best friend. The man is a truly gifted comedian, but he seems trapped in his own self-contained petting zoo here. You can feel the restraints pulling him back, and he is left with little to do but look like Weird Al’s younger brother . If anyone had their nuts cut off in conjunction with this particular film, it was him. He needs to jump back over the fence and find himself a nice R rated comedy that will let him run free. We don’t really need Russell Brand in a Disney movie, do we? There are far less talented cheap comedians that could have blandly flourished in his role.

Bedtime Stories gets a barely murmured Whoop-doo! It’s not the greatest thing any of these people have ever made, but it will keep you entertained for a while. Just don’t question its magical methods of being. And you’ll be all right, you little sheep, ewe.

(All of B. Alan Orange’s reviews are based on the Boo! or Whoop-doo! evaluation system.)