In the Netflix movie Hubie Halloween, Adam Sandler plays Hubie Dubois, a simple but well meaning man and his town's self-appointed safety monitor who isn't much liked by his town. This Halloween people start disappearing and it's up to Hubie to figure out what's going on. Yeah... This is a flawed movie which is more disappointing in that it had potential.
The big issue with this movie is that a large portion of the cast is so intensely, inexplicably cruel to the character. And THERE IS A LOT OF THIS! It's not entertaining and not particularly well written. Some times these moments just feel surreal and off. Plus, you've got some big names, such as Michael Chiklis and Ray Liotta, performing these really lousy scenes.
The character of Hubie feels like recycled material as Sandler meshes the lead from The Waterboy with Whitey from Eight Crazy Nights.
Also, Hubie Halloween has this weird mentioning of character connections. The police chief (Kevin James) is the ex of Hubie's love interest (Julie Bowen) and Hubie was the childhood friend of another person I can't go into detail on. However, the two sets of characters never really interact with each other. So, what was the point? (In fairness, it could be a deleted scenes situation.)
Going back to the casting, this movie has a large batch of familiar faces, but with the exception of Kenan Thompson and Steve Buscemi, they're given comedic material that doesn't work for them and feels like a waste of their talent and time.
Thing is I wanted this movie to succeed. It had potential but couldn't stick the landing. The mystery of what is going on is solid and the reveals payoff. Most of the jokes fail, but there a few good ones, including two moments that steal the film. Also, Hubie has a modified thermos that is like a swiss army knife, and it's pretty fun seeing all the fantastic weird things it can do.
The film looks nice. I appreciate that they took the time to make the town look busy and populated and that there is a huge selection of Halloween costumes in this.
If you're a die-hard Sandler fan, then you know what you're getting and will probably be satisfied. Everyone else though, I can't recommend this except if you want to see how ill advised and odd this goes.
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