Eight Crazy Nights

This is a wonderful film that should proudly be seated next to Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas.

Congrats to Sandler and his crew for bringing us an original (somewhat twisted) Holiday treat .... It's fresh to see a movie like this that breaks away from the (somewhat droll) regular Christmas Formula.

Sure, it may not exactly be great 'family' entertainment.... but it wont really harm any too many young fragile minds either. While there is a small amount of crude humor in this film... it doesnt cross the line and spoil any 'mythologies' of Christmas .... so young minds will not be tainted and lose their belief in Jolly Old Nick!

I've read lots of critisism about this film... and I was holding back until I saw it before I hit back at them. The fact is that there isnt much ground to criticize. It's Adam Sandler at his peak. It's a new art form for him and in the past year he has really spread his wings and taken off.

With this and Punch-Drunk Love under his belt, it's easy to say that it's been a good year for Sandler. If you want something different, original, colourful and fun to watch this Chrissy, then watch this little gem. Ignore all of the backlash and make up your own mind.

I rate this 8 out of 10.

Funny as all heck. Decent story music was alright. Animation holds up for its age. Added to my families Christmas movie rotation.

Adam Sandler shows a great range and his characters. The story is fairly compelling. Whitey makes the story without him. The story goes nowhere.

It is a touching Christmas story. It really is about Whitey and how he impacts the people and his hometown.

The way whitey believes in his town the people in it. It's when Adam Sandler's character stands up for Whitey that you really see the true story of Christmas. Come alive in this.

The story brings the story of Hanukkah and redemption with through Christmas into a new light.

When it comes to comedies, Adam Sandler movies are in a niche of their very own. They're divisive critically, they tend to resort to the lowest common denominator, yet by the end of it they manage to get plenty of people to tune in, and they do respectably at the box office. Adam Sandler is no dummy, he managed to make bank with a lot of films, demonstrated his chops as a dramatic actor and thanks to his films not being put on a pedestal by a general public, he has managed to maintain a humble attitude that persists to this day.

Everyone has their favorite Adam Sandler film, whether it be those considered nostalgic or better with its tropes, and Eight Crazy Nights is one of my personal favorites. Yes it's absolutely crass, and for it to take place in a holiday film is bound to really irk people, but that just helps make it stand out from others. Whether you like it or not, you can't say Eight Crazy Nights didn't do something, well, relatively different.

The animation is an objective positive, not just because of it in a vacuum, but because it was made out of passion, commitment, essentially given those laid off from major 2D studios another shot to do what they do best.

As for the humor, as a lot of people complain about adult cartoons being ugly and having equally ugly humor, Eight Crazy Nights proves that foul humor is possible no matter how good the art, animation, etcetera.

Eight Crazy Nights has some benefit of coming out when Adam Sandler movies were at a respectable peak, before the schtick started to get old for a lot of people, it has a crazy way of sticking with you whether it be for better or worse. If you want a break from the more cutesy holiday flicks and you're not picky, see what Eight Crazy Nights can do for you.

Adam Sandler's animated tale has a thirty-three-year-old troublemaker (voiced by Sandler) wreaking havoc during the eight days of Hanukah. After getting in trouble with the law, he is given two choices: go to jail or perform community service, working as assistant referee for youth basketball league with the team's eccentric coach (also voiced by Sandler). He chooses the latter (whether he likes it or not) and goes out of his way to humiliate the coach at every chance he gets. Can the coach make this slacker change his ways?

Sandler caters to his fans with his crude, gross-out humor and excrement jokes. Some funny, and some plain stupid. Some of the songs are hilarious, including Sandler's revised Hanukah song. For those expecting a family-oriented holiday film can look elsewhere.

My evaluation: ** out of ****

Okay a viewer can watch this and see it in one of two lights, not both. Either a person can watch this and say, 'that was the cruelest and most disturbing thing I've ever seen' or the other 'That was kind of weird but portrayed a message.' Okay I know what you are saying, a Sandler film with a point, NO WAY! But no, this movie does have a message of Christmas (or Hanukkah) and works out quite plainly if you pay attention.

The story goes like this. It's the holidays and Davey (Voiced by Adam Sandler) is a mean-spirited, spiteful young man with a criminal record. His past was perfect until his parents died when he was 13. Now he's back in court and about to be sentenced to jail when a kind-hearted, old man named Whitey (also voiced by Sandler) who offers to the judge to have Davey perform community service as an assistant referee for youth basketball.

Davey thinks he's going to get off easy until Whitey begins to try and reform the young man. Davey does some horrible, and almost unbelievable things to him but Whitey is ever kind and optimistic and even offers Davey a home once his burns down. Slowly Davey begins to change from a troubled young man to a kinder person. But all the while, memories form his troubled past continue to plague him and cause him to be angry. The whole time, the movie keeps you guessing if he'll overcome the anger that built inside of him with the help of Whitey or be engulfed in it.

The whole film I absolutely hated Sandler's character. He was more than angry, he was deranged and just plain mean to the old man who tries to help him and couldn't help but think 'man this guys horrible.' But after a second viewing I realized the film was trying to do something. The film echoes a cry for being kind and how good triumphs over evil, in the case of the film Whitey overtaking Davey's anger with kindness and changing him. By the end of the movie I had gotten some good laughs from it and really felt better and realized how I should act around the holidays.

Pretty much the film juxtaposes the two most opposite characters and shows what kind of affect they'll have on each other. It shows how when a person is kinder, they may not be as popular, but they'll be happy, they'll have friends, and they'll be set for life. This movie isn't a classic in anyway.

The film has some great laughs, the deer are great throughout the film along with Whitey's brother, Elanor (also voiced by Sandler)and will keep you laughing until the last five minutes. The humor is a bit crude in some of the scenes and some of the antics Davey performs are cruel and terrible. But in the end , the film shows how a person should be during the holidays, how kindness is always the better choice, and how the past shouldn't haunt a person.

Eight Crazy Nights. Starring the voices of: Adam Sandler, Jackie Titone, Austin Stout, and Rob Schneider.

3 1/2 out of 5 Stars.