Adam Sandler was once the 100 million dollar man and the Waterboy was one of his comedies that made lots of money at the box office. It probably isn’t as funny today as it was when it made all that money and the Blu-ray adds little to the package.
Bobby Boucher (Adam Sandler) is a hapless man-child who acts as a water boy for the University of Louisiana Cougars coached by the driven Red Beaulieu (Jerry Reed). Bobby has lived a sheltered life due to his overprotective mother (Kathy Bates).
Bobby loses his purpose when Beaulieu fires him from the team and he agrees to work for free for the downtrodden team the South Central Louisiana State University Mud Dogs. The team is led by Coach Klein (Henry Winkler) who is a rival of Beaulieu.
One day, Bobby gets angry at Gee Grenouille (Peter Dante), the team captain, and uses that pent up anger and rage to tackle the more experienced player. Coach Klein then senses Bobby’s unknown skill and puts him on the field and the team begins to excel.
Not only on the field, but Bobby also gets a girlfriend, Vicki (Fairuza Balk). However, Beaulieu has a secret weapon of his own as he knows that Bobby’s high school transcript is not what it appears. Now Bobby has to pass a GED test if he wants to continue to excel on the field.
Adam Sandler took his appearances on Saturday Night Live and massaged them into a multi-million dollar movie career. His star has been on the wane of late as his comedies are not fetching the box office they used to. I’d speculate that his comedy isn’t much removed from the Waterboy, but its popularity has become diluted with the appearance of other imitators.
This sort of cringe-inducing, goofball schtick has become the norm. Give me the black, biting satire of the Loved One any day, but loud and brassy appears to be the norm.
The Waterboy is certainly that as Bobby is an annoying character, largely based on a Cajun character and canteen carrying character from SNL, and the jokes always veer (or leer) towards the gross out sort and all rolled up and fried in Cajun seasoning guaranteed to illicit heartburn.
The Waterboy is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (1.85:1). There are no special features. Somewhat disappointing in that the DVD release had a featurette and the trailer. I’d expect those features to be the minimum that would show up. You don’t get nuttin.
The Waterboy comes up dry and certainly hasn’t aged well. I’m sure it has its fans but that they’re really not given a reason to buy this high-def version as there’s no added value content.
The Waterboy [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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