Entertainment

CUT OFF THE TALES

THOSE other Adam Sandler comedies? Turns out they were the grown-up efforts.

“Bedtime Stories,” Sandler’s bizarrely clunky kiddie flick, is a sort of upside-down “Princess Bride.” This time the fantastic fairy tales told to a little boy and girl are only about one-tenth of the movie. The rest deal with the dreary life of their storyteller, Uncle Skeeter (Sandler), “a gum-scraping handyman” who dreams of running the hotel once owned by his father (Jonathan Pryce).

Bankrupt, the old man sold out to a germophobic entrepreneur (Richard Griffiths) who leaves management duties to the suck-up boyfriend (Guy Pearce) of his socialite daughter (Teresa Palmer). Skeeter commiserates with a waiter (Russell Brand) who has little to do except fall asleep and wake up screaming every few minutes. (What’s with all these Brits and Australians in a film set in LA? Did Sandler offer to pay in lager?)

Skeeter’s laid-off sister (Courteney Cox) asks him to take care of her two kids, whose teacher/baby sitter (Keri Russell) is a Prius-driving priss who turns up her nose at Skeeter’s rumbling pickup truck.

All of these “real-life” characters pop up in costume in the silly tales Skeeter spins for the kids. The stories (they’re about a cowboy, knight, chariot racer and space cowboy) last only a couple of minutes each, and none of them goes anywhere as the kids toss in non sequiturs such as “and then he got kicked by a dwarf” or “then he found a fat, hairy guy unconscious on the beach.”

The fantasy sequences offer little in the way of laughs or thrills, relying on cut-rate special effects and random instances of goofiness – one of which, the

slime-spewing “booger monster” in a “Star Wars” spoof, will probably be dubbed the scene of the year by 5-year-olds.

It takes until halfway through this pokey movie for the point of anything to kick in: The story elements contributed by the kids al- ways come true in Skeeter’s real life.

If they say all the girls who were mean to him in high school are going to dance the hokey-pokey around him, then that’s exactly what happens the next time he walks into a bar, pointless though it may be.

Skeeter is hoping the kids will come up with a story that will lead to him winning a contest involving pitching ideas for a theme hotel. Unfortunately for him, in the last story he told the kids, they had his character get “incineratated.”

You could do a lot with the format, particularly the idea of the wackiest parts of the stories coming true in unexpected ways. Instead, they come true in the most insipid, unimaginative ways. If Abraham Lincoln is supposed to show up in Skeeter’s life, then someone drops a penny near him. Exciting.

Skeeter’s “real life” antics involve him screeching his lines at glass-breaking pitch, throwing french fries at his waiter friend (Sandler and Brand make a weirdly mismatched comedy team), singing “Rock Me Amadeus” in his truck or getting his wallet stolen (by Rob Schneider, who seems to have no other employment these days besides being Sandler’s cameo guy).

When Sandler wails “for

freeeeee!” in an attempt to get laughs, you’ll long for the relative genius of “Click.”

Director Adam Shankman misses no opportunity to cut to the kids’ pet, a moony-eyed gerbil that eats s’mores, possibly because the rodent gives the best performance in the movie.

BEDTIME STORIES

You’ll fight to keep your eyes open.

Running time: 95 minutes. Rated PG (mildly crude humor). At the Lincoln Square, the Orpheum, the E-Walk, others.