MovieChat Forums > Adam Sandler Discussion > When did Adam Sandler stop being funny?

When did Adam Sandler stop being funny?


The tough thing in gauging that question is to determine what Sandler was exactly. He was one of the most unique SNL cast members ever given that he wasn't particularly memorable in sketches. His specialty was Weekend Update, and he had characters that were memorable, but tended to be hit or miss with the audience. That lead to a movie career that was very similar in the early years. Several movies that were memorable but were hit or miss. If you were a kid or teenager when those movies came out, you probably find Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and The Wedding Singer to be very funny.

Those movies transitioned not so much to things that were product placement-filled, but celebrity cameo-filled. THAT is what I feel cost him the humor that he was bringing to the masses in the mid to late '90s.

He also had a thing in his later films about him being some chick magnet, whom all the women swoon over. He's also almost always rich, successful, living in a mansion or upper middle-class house with a hot wife, and he's even a badass punching people out with one punch.

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For the entire 90s, dude was on top of the world. I actually love Anger Management (2003) which a lot of people don't. I thought it was a still goofy but slightly more mature comedy (he was a businessman and not a slacker, lol) that got underappreciated. Nicholson even co-starred in it! I thought during the mid 00s he was still pretty solid. I'd say Click, and Chuck & Larry (06-07) were his last consistently great and entertaining movies.

I don't know if was just the fact that he was over 40 after that, or just didn't put as much effort into it anymore after being so used to being successful, but you've definitely got a point that in the last ten years, he's usually the rich suburban dad or pursuing beautiful young women half his age.

His more recent movies are entertaining to watch once or twice, but they aren't memorable and laugh a minute the way Billy Madison, Gilmore, or Wedding Singer are.

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2004 was his last good year

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"not funny in sketches, but funny in Weekend Update" --- that is not unique, that is the definition of almost everyone who was ever on SNL

You don't have to be creative to make fun of the news



Adam was born in 1966, so he stopped being funny in 1967?

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When he played his sister.

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"I actually love Anger Management (2003) which a lot of people don't."

This. Happy to see I'm not the only one. And I don't even like Sandler, but love this movie.

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There's two answers to that question.

1. When you grew up.
2. He was never actually funny.

The reason you think he once was is because you were probably a lot easier to entertain when you were younger, and you may still have a nostalgia for those earlier films of his, that fools you that they're actually good.. Believe me, if Billy Madison, or Happy Gilmore, or The Waterboy were released today, you would hate them just as much as his recent films.


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