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I was – sort of. It was a little better than expected. But that voice still made me want to collect every Billy Madison video in town and head for the skeet range.
Sandler plays nerdy Satanic heir Nicky, who would rather stay in his room on yet another underworld apparently built by Tim Burton (just once it would be nice to see a Hell designed by, say, that guy who paints the blue dogs, or the Lego people) and play air guitar than torture the damned. But when his abusive, power-mad brothers Cassius (Tiny Lister, from the Friday movies) and Adrian (Notting Hill’s Rhys Ifans) escape to New York to build their own Hades on Earth, the Devil himself (Harvey Keitel*) sends him topside to stop their scheme before they destroy the balance of the universe and ruin things for everybody, good and evil.
Aided by a talking demonic bulldog (Robert Smigel), a definitely not-gay actor (frequent Sandler supporting character Allen Covert), two halfwit stoner aspiring Satanists (Peter Dante and Jonathan Loughran, also seen in Sandler’s other movies), and a homely art student (Patricia Arquette, who’s shockingly frumpy in knit cap and coke-bottle glasses), Nicky acclimates to temporary human life, finds the secret of his mysterious roots, and goads his siblings into an apocalyptic showdown with Ozzy Osbourne in Central Park. It’s a goofy framework that finds Sandler at his best when bouncing off somebody else. Fortunately an energetic litany of cameo-driven gags, featuring many of his former “SNL” collaborators (who, such as Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey, are sometimes nearly unrecognizable under extensive makeup), afford many such opportunities.
When the gags work, which is fairly often, so does Little Nicky. Thankfully, even though Sandler (who, as usual, co-wrote the script with his former college roommate Tim Herlihy) occasionally tries to out-Farrelly the Farrelly brothers, there’s less cheap stuff on display this time out than in his previous movies. But be warned – when things do get tasteless, as in a scene where little kids go on a puking spree after NYC’s demon-possessed mayor lowers the drinking age to ten, then it’s “devil take the hindmost.” B-
*You can’t help but wonder if Harvey Keitel might have taken this part because Robert DeNiro has enjoyed so much success in comedic roles lately, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle notwithstanding. But people tend to forget that long before Analyze This Bobby already had a few chucklers to his credit, such as We’re No Angels and Midnight Run; despite his method actor rep, he’s also got good comic instincts. The only other intentionally funny thing starring Keitel I can think of is 1989’s The January Man…although for net laughability he should get credit for the 1980 sci-fi bowzer Saturn 3, which is generally remembered most for providing a brief glimpse of Farrah Fawcett’s left breast.
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