Hubie Halloween

If there's anything that can be said about comedian Adam Sandler, it's that he knows he has a grip on his audience with his repetitive antics in much of his projects. Having risen to prominence during the 1990s with his work on Saturday Night Live and notable early works, he has refused to move on from his tired familiar story formulas of that time. There have been exceptions to where he took on more dramatic work that he excelled in such as Punch Drunk Love (2004) and Uncut Gems (2019). He was smart enough to get into a deal between his production company Happy Madison Productions and Netflix that started in 2014 (which was renewed this past year). This brings us to another film in that agreement that aligns with this holiday season, Hubie Halloween, which was directed by Steven Brills (who helmed a few recent Netflix-Sandler films). Looking at the marketing, it appeared to follow the track record list of the actors formula: teaming up with friends he tends to work with, playing a loser in his town, etc. With Halloween just around the corner at the time of this review, it felt necessary to find something in that nature to take on. After watching this holiday comedy, it's safe to say it's not the terrible movie Sandler threatened to make after not getting a best actor nomination for Uncut Gems last year and is a weird mixed bag. 

What's it about? The story follows a Halloween loving town buffoon who must save his town of Salem, MA from a kidnapper. There's a good intention with an ant-bullying sort of theme that's mixed with the holiday. There's fun effort put into some of the costumes worn here and decoration here. There's some laughter to be found with the weirdness of the visual jokes and gags that don't involve the main protagonist. The best way to describe the good found in the story is that some of the humor that doesn't involve the hero (focusing on side characters) works enough to keep looking for enjoyment. 

However, when it focuses on the protagonist and the plot, then the interruptions in the fun factor come out. It's not shy about using the old tale of "ridiculed character who's admired by a bland love interest must save the day" shenanigans with it being very recycled from past entries. The writing surrounding him goes into random parts that happen just because the main star is also the co-writer (for example, he wanted to get a vomit gag out within the first 2 minutes with a weird line). The happy ending goes too far with the ridiculous nature and doesn't feel necessarily earned for how annoying the "Hubie" part is. Speaking of which...

 

How's Adam Sandler in this? As mentioned before anything not involving the star's role here is serviceable enough, which can't be said for Adam. His habit of doing weird voices, not understanding sex terms, and random occasional flatulence or slapstick is cringe to watch. Anytime something remotely good enough happens, it jumps back to Adam ruining it by even doing the annoying accent. If he dropped the voice he always does here, then the rating given here wouldn't have been docked as much. In fact, whenever he gets picked on by teenagers chasing him while throwing crazy objects at him, it doesn't feel bad to root for those hooligans due to how grating the "hero" can get (it's a fun gag to watch it dodge all of the wacky heavy objects meant to harm him).

How are the other actors? In regards to the rest of the cast, the supporting actor highlights belong to Maya Rudolph, Tim Meadows, and Ray Liotta. The interactions between Maya and Tim doesn't start off that amusing at first but it gets better for them later on (the trick they pull is pretty neat and the costume the latter wears is a favorite). Ray is kinda entertaining in just how much he's hamming up his jerk personality with his childish insults. Honorable mentions Steve Buscemi and Shaquille O'Neal for being the most bizarre with their own weird scenes (especially the latter for not only being the last cameo expected to show up but for getting a nice laugh too). 

 

Overall Consensus: Hubie Halloween is a struggling Halloween comedy at war with itself between an annoying protagonist and predictable recycled plot colliding against nice work from supporting actors, decent gags, and nice holiday spirit. ⭑⭑⭑ Runtime: 1 hour 42 minutes PG-13

 

Reasons to watch it: You are a fan of the aforementioned actors. You like the antics normally associated with Happy Madison Productions movies. You don't mind Sandler doing his schtick as described in this review. 

 

Reasons to avoid it: You aren't a fan of the aforementioned actors. You are annoyed the antics normally associated with Happy Madison Productions movies. You want to see a Halloween comedy that won't make you cringe. You dislike unlikable protagonist.