A.W. Tozer once said “when you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection.” This feeling has been coursing through my veins ever since I wasted an hour and 37 minutes between classes watching The Cobbler starring Adam Sandler.
In another utterly pitiful attempt at middle school humor by Sandler, he once again fell short of making almost anyone laugh while having a rail thin plot line that never once engages the audience.
Believe me, I love awful movies — some that try to be awful (a la Sharknado) and some that are meant to be taken seriously but are so bad I have no choice but to laugh. At times, awful movies can be better than nearly any classic. Yet the steaming trash pile that Sandler pushed out this time accomplished nothing in terms of entertainment or pulling in viewers.
To begin, the plot provides minimal stimulation. Max Simpkin (Sandler) is a cobbler in New York City who wishes to leave his boring profession and find fun and possibly love, although that plot line goes completely untouched. He then stumbles upon a magic shoe machine that makes him appear like the owner of that shoe.
Through his misadventures as the body of various shoe owners, he sneaks into a shoe owner's girlfriend’s apartment, gets shot down by multiple women and eventually commits a grisly murder. He does everything in the shoes of others and puts countless innocent individuals at risk and comes close to ruining various relationships and lives but brushes it off because he is the magic cobbler and nothing else truly matters.
Various attempts to pull at the viewer’s heart all fall epically short, and you don’t know who to root for by the end of the disaster. The only character I envy in the movie is Max’s father because he ran away from the family and got to miss every second of what can only generously be described as a comedy, or so you think, until he makes a very predictable return to the film.
Technically defined as a comedy, the film develops like a thriller minus any thought of danger or adventure. It is a step up from other Sandler monstrosities such as Jack and Jill or That’s My Boy, but it still becomes nothing but wasted time.
There are three categories of bad films: so awful that it is hilarious, so bad at being serious, it's fun and tries too hard to be funny and makes you regret every second of the film you’ve watched. Unfortunately, The Cobbler falls into the last.
If you need something slightly more fun than watching people ride the escalators at Baker Student Center then this is the film for you.
Tyler Corbit is a freshman studying journalism with a focus in strategic communications at Ohio University. Will Adam Sandler ever make a respectable movie ever again? Let Tyler know by tweeting him at @Tylercorbit
