This isn't a good movie.. but it also isn't ruined by Sandlerisms. The screenplay isn't terrible. The premise is utterly enjoyable. A Cobbler who can look like anyone by putting on their shoes. It's a fun premise that I figured could explore a lot of things. You could take it super dramatic and he learned about other people and how organic the city is. You can go straight comedy with Adam Sandler dressed as a transvestite etc etc.

There's a number of problems with the movie the major spoiler theme wise is that it's closer to [spoiler]The Kingsmen[/spoiler] than any other movie. It has the same opening and discovering and then [spoiler]expansion at the end[/spoiler]. Part of me actually wouldn't mind seeing more just because of how it ended.

The acting is pretty solid. I don't know why Method Man isn't showing up on Trakt when he's a major character and his acting was fine but his character was a bit too much in places. I also have two major gripes with the established narrative.

1. He puts on the shows he becomes the owner. Fair. It's like a dry cleaner there's a ton of forgotten shows so he can wear them and become all the people. My problem is he uses a lot of current customer shows. He uses Method Man's shoes he uses a black boy's shoes. But he's a same day cobbler. He promises Method Man his shoes at close. His sign says like 15m. Aren't people coming back for their shoes? At no point do people come and take their shoes back it's just all dropping off for the duration of the movie. So he has this wide array of "actively used" shoes.

2. He gets unethical while black. It's a bit more complicated than that but in short Max (soon after he learns of the powers) starts to go around the town as various people. And the movie makes it's first twist. I thought maybe he'd learn about what it's like to be them. Instead he just does a bunch of unethical stuff. He steals he robs. he dines and dashes as a black man that we saw drop off shoes. That means this black dude will one day be accosted for dining and dashing when he's done no such thing. That's a dick move. He goes to sleep with someone else's girlfriend and that's practically rape iirc. He threatens Method Man as a young black kid. Which as far as I'm concerned is putting this innocent black kid in danger of being killed by gangsters for doing something no black child would do.

For most of the movie Max is presented as this likeable guy but.. he's not. He's greedy, he has no values. On top of cheating people with the shoes in the montage. He steals from Method Man for .... actually for nothing. He didn't actually get threatened by him or anything. But he decides to rob a gangster's house AS that gangster.. to steal his watches. Then when that goes south and he can finally walk away he decides to double down to get $50k. At no point does he say "This is too much I need to leave". He almost loses believability as a character but he definitely loses likeability. And yet outside of that Sandler as Max is fairly charming. I WANT to like him. Between the gaps in the story and the gaps in him as a person it just brings down the movie. It's a watchable flick that offends because it could have been a lovely film and ends up being reductively silly.

I don't know what's really going on with Adam Sandler in the recent years, he was actually out of the league for a while from entertaining his fans. All he did was overdose comedies which were below par compared to his earlier movies. I said in 'Blended' review that I'm tired of his movie, but watched it only because of the director. All his films were very impressive and I believed him on this one, more than the Sandler. Otherwise, it would have been undoubtedly a skippable flick.

As expected the movie was good, but not without the flaws, I mean the major ones because there are many unanswered stuffs that leaves viewers go either way from thinking all the possibility to create their own imagination. Hope that's not the case, the writers do not want to be that smart otherwise it will be a messed up movie with having a wonderful theme idea.

Yeah, I liked the concept, but it should have been a bit detail while exploring the story and exhibiting the characters. I still feel it can be covered in the follow-up, so from that perspective, the movie was decent. Especially highlighting one of the social issue was a nice addition, but the portrayal of family affair was a disappointment. It's that kind of story demanded in a like manner, but that does not convince me at all.

From the Adam Sandler's perspective the movie was much better, because of his series of recent fails. At the same time it was a bit letdown from the perspective of the director known for his cool works. Overall, it lays on 50-50, and mostly favours on the positive side because of the narration of the dark comedy in a style. And again, I felt the end was terrible with cliche. I definitely give thumbs up to go for it, even though the loopholes the creative concept draws our attention.

6.5/10