Metacritic reviews

As a comedy, 50 First Dates is standard Sandler, but as a love story it left me pleasantly buzzed, if not quite punch-drunk.

A chick flick for guys, with a pH balance in perfect equilibrium between the crass and the sweet.

For all the irrelevant silliness, though, the movie never loses sight of its romantic center, and the script doesn't cop out with phony miracles or sudden changes of direction.

I don't think 50 First Dates is a great movie, or a particularly funny one, but I admired its romanticism and its gentle plea for the acceptance of difference. Of how many romantic comedies can you say they are sweet and disturbing?

The movie's sole selling point turns out to be its sweetness. Sandler, Segal and writer George Wing obviously like all of the characters despite the constant ribbing, and Sandler and Barrymore are as cuddly as a pair of love-struck walruses. But only a sucker would get too close.

If you've never seen a Sandler movie, however, this isn't the one to start with. Proceed only if you're sure you like the guy.

50 First Dates is working awfully hard to be romantic and not hard enough to be a comedy.

What do you get when you mix Adam Sandler with SPAM gags, a trained vomiting walrus, a wall-to-wall soundtrack of calypso covers of 1980s pop hits, and Rob Schneider in native-Islander brownface? You get a pretty crappy movie, but for one major mitigating factor: Drew Barrymore.

Oscillating gracelessly between the coarse and the merely saccharine, 50 First Dates, directed with zero visual or comedic flair by Peter Segal (Anger Management, Tommy Boy), showcases Sandler's cuddlier side as it reprises the tepid chemistry that he and Barrymore road-tested in "The Wedding Singer."

It's hard to enjoy this when you're barraged by bathroom humor, animal stunts, and gags about a character whose memory loss is so bad he's called Ten-Second Tom.