50 First Dates 2004

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Much of this is very sweet, even touching, but it just isn't funny. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: The film moves in fits and starts, never finding its groove: It's as if the filmmakers could come up with a potentially successful premise but no way of following through. Read more

Mark Caro, Chicago Tribune: Sandler's movies always have combined juvenile humor with sentimentality, but the two rarely have seemed so out of synch. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: An awkward blend of date movie and preadolescent comedy. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: This movie paints itself into a corner from which it cannot emerge without becoming an utter disaster as far as I'm concerned. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Pushes all the right buttons and pushes them expertly. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: 50 First Dates wants to have it both ways, but only one of them really works. Read more

Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times: 50 First Dates has nothing going for it -- and much going against it. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: Great date-movie material if you can keep your date from bolting during the first half. Read more

Paul Clinton (CNN.com), CNN.com: This pedestrian pic starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore never gets out of neutral, and should have been left in park -- back in the junkyard. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: 50 First Dates offers a seductive vision of a quirky love. But there is a note of melancholy at the conclusion of this mixed bag of the compassionate and the crude. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The stars have a goo-goo chemistry that's hard to resist. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: The film could have made a solid Saturday Night Live skit, but the closest it gets is serving as a reunion for onetime cast members. Read more

John Patterson, L.A. Weekly: The memory-loss device dimly recalls Groundhog Day, though the film's low laugh rate, occasional lachrymosity and flaccid pacing assuredly do not. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: Sticky but ingratiating. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: 50 First Dates is reasonably good fluff, balancing lovey sentiment and low-brow laughs, though it will likely evaporate from memory as quickly as Lucy forgets her meetings with Henry. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: A terrible movie by all reasonable standards -- yet it leaves a sweet taste. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Stupid, coarse and abysmally unfunny. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: What starts out looking like another crude, bullying Adam Sandler extravaganza ends up as a surprisingly graceful and impressively daring romantic comedy. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: Surprisingly sweet. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: 50 First Dates is more of a romantic comedy than an Adam Sandler comedy. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie doesn't have the complexity and depth of Groundhog Day, but as entertainment it's ingratiating and lovable. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore shine in this sweet, flirty comedy about a man who falls for a woman with short-term memory loss. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The jokes in 50 First Dates aren't jokes, and the bits aren't bits so much as scattershot gestures in the general direction of comedy, at which an audience is expected to laugh, not at the joke, but at the comic's attempt at humor. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: 50 First Dates stays bravely true to its unresolvable premise. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Entertaining? Forget about it. The film is less toxic than most Sandler vehicles, but so is anthrax. Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: Crude, lewd and shameless? You bet. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: If there's one thing to commend in 50 First Dates, apart from the finest walrus performances this side of Marineland, it's Barrymore, whose irrepressible cheerfulness and buoyancy at least makes Henry's motivation anything but mysterious. Read more

Wally Hammond, Time Out: Quite what age group this soft-centered entertainment is aimed at is hard to divine. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: 50 First Dates is working awfully hard to be romantic and not hard enough to be a comedy. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Vast majority of the humor is so grotesquely obvious and crudely presented (in addition to being mildly crude in and of itself) that Sandler dissenters are guaranteed to remain just where they are. Read more

Laura Sinagra, Village Voice: Ends up making you pine for Lucy's gift of forgetting. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: 50 First Dates possesses an undeniable heart. The bad news is that it will still be buried underneath layers of stale Sandlerisms tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. Read more