50 First Dates

What’s the Story?

Lucy (Drew Barrymore) wakes up every morning with no memory of anything that happened since her brain was injured in a car crash 18 months before. Henry Roth (Adam Sandler) is an affable marine veterinarian at a Hawaiian aquarium who's had many, many short-term relationships with female tourists, which keep him safe from commitment. Then he meets Lucy, whose short-term memory impairment makes it impossible for her to make any kind of commitment. But he falls in love with her.

Is It Any Good?

Yes, it's another Adam Sandler movie, which means that a sweet but very immature man will fall for a winsome young lady amidst many, many, many attempts to find humor in sexual orientation, the impact of steroid use on sexual function, the relative merits of different sexual partners, getting walloped on the head, getting walloped on the stomach, getting bit by a shark, various physical disabilities and impairments, and more references to penis size and sexual stamina than a mailbox full of spam.

Barrymore is as delicious as ever, and, as in The Wedding Singer, she and Sandler have an easy chemistry that showcases their offbeat appeal. But some viewers will find there is too little romance and too much gross-out humor. And some will be sorry about the waste of talented performers like Dan Ackroyd, as Lucy's doctor, and Sean Austin (Lord of the Rings) as Lucy's lisping, steroid-using brother.