BEDTIME STORIES

We were going to go see MARLEY AND ME on New Year's Day, but the times didn't work out and this Disney offering was starting just as we got to the theater (in downtown Chicago), so we got tix for it and went in.

This is not a great movie. I'd give it two of four stars, were I to rate movies using a four star system. It had its moments, but in the end it was just a little too much of Adam Sandler for me. He's sort of worn out this character for me already. Because, for me, this was just more of the same Billy Madison/Happy whoever big overgrown kid character that I've seen in most every Sandler comedy. (I've heard he was good in a serious role, but I didn't see that film and don't recall what it was even called.)

But my kids thought it was okay. And the story was decent - a handyman at a hotel continually gets the shaft at his workplace, but when he is drafted to babysit his niece and nephew, things start to change. He notices that when he tells them a bedtime story, the parts that they add come true, for some reason. So he tries to tailor the stories to make the outcome favorable for him, thus assuming that everything will work out. Of course, things don't work out the way he wants them to, not exactly anyway.

Kerri Russell is good as the teacher/love interest, and the kids are good. Most of the rest of the roles are cliches. (My kids got a kick out of the first bedtime story where he refers to himself as Sir Fixalot, and his rival as Sir Buttkiss. And that might be the funniest bit in the movie!)

It's an okay Disney movie, and that's about the best I can say for it.