GRINCH GOES HOLLYWOOD

By Greg Walton

Review Film Critic

Believe it or not, there was a time when holiday TV specials were actually

special.  You had one shot at watching Charlie Brown suffer the indignities

of Christmas commercialism, a single opportunity to watch Rudolph kick some

Abominable Snowman behind, and if you didn't it was a loooong 364 day wait.

But shrewd marketing and audience impatience have conspired to create an

environment in which you can watch Frosty the Snowman at the height of

summer - with nothing but an air conditioner to set the mood.  Convenient,

yes, but not much of a memorable childhood event.

And as holiday events go, they don't get much bigger than Dr. Seuss' How

the Grinch Stole Christmas. Which is why the thought of messing with a

masterpiece sends shivers down most purists'  persnickerdoodles.  But Ron

Howard and company went ahead with a live-action Grinch anyway, starring

Jim Carrey as the grumpy green one himself, and a host of heavily made-up

Whos to translate the Seuss universe into three dimensions.

While far from faithful to the Doctor's unique vision, The Grinch  redeems

itself as a blatantly disposable baby-sitter of a movie - designed to keep

kid's eyes and ears incessantly occupied.

First, forget the cartoon.  Even though the set design and special effects

mirror memorable scenes, much of the original's charm lay in Boris

Karloff's  lispy narration and Chuck Jones's quirky animation.  Instead,

The Grinch  re-invents itself with the casting of Jim Carrey, turning him

loose on Whoville like a vortex of vulgarity.

There's no disguising who's underneath all that green fur and contact

lenses.  He burps, he farts, he chews glass and spits out insults, all with

Ace Ventura-esque attitude.

Traditionalists may cringe, but Carrey's Grinch thumbs his nose at any

literal translation.  The film is full of kid-humor and parental puns.

After a taxi refuses to pick him up on the streets of Whoville, he shakes

his fist, "It's  because I'm  green, isn't it?!"  And his daily to-do list

reads: 1) Wallow in self-pity.  2) Solve world hunger...tell no one.

But Carrey's endless energy eventually becomes one tiresome tirade.  The

moments where he slips into old-school Grinchisms, such as wrapping up

little Cindy Lou-Who (Taylor Momsen) and stuffing her down a mail slot, are

precious and few.  This Grinch has gone Hollywood.

Director Ron Howard packs the screen with eccentric characters, an

outlandish amount of color, and superb sets.  But that's all to be expected

in Seuss.  And The Grinch  never does much to surprise you, although the

added running time allows for some insight into the green guy's formative

years.  Howard is simply too straight-laced to make much sense of Seuss's

humor.  It would be interesting to see what someone like Tim Burton would

do with all this raw material on hand.

As successful as The Grinch  is as up-front entertainment, it never digs

deeper into holiday tradition.  The moment where the Grinch understands the

true meaning of Christmas is understated compared to the shot of him waving

mistletoe over his butt and shouting, "Pucker up and kiss it Whoville!" The

constant attempt to contemporize what was timeless in the first place sucks

away some of the Seuss magic - leaving lots of jokes and razzle

dazzle...but a heart about three sizes too small.

Grade: B-

 SLUMMIN' WITH THE DEVIL

    	Adam Sandler's success has always relied on a certain amount of

predictability.  His legions of fans have come to expect 70's  hard rock

ballads and groin-based humor painstakingly intertwined with a modicum of

finesse (except they don't use such big words).  So the first five minutes

of Little Nicky , in which Sandler air jams to Runnin' With the Devil and

is then mercilessly pounded in the family jewels, should be an early

Christmas present to Sandler-slobs everywhere.  Instead, it barely rates a

giggle on the ex-SNL star laugh-meter.

Why now?  What's  different?  There's nothing wrong with the formula.  It's

been tried and tested with Happy Gilmore  and The Waterboy  - both

masterful examples of stupidly-inspired filmmaking. Little Nicky  still has

the Laugh or Go Home  attitude of Sandler's  best work,  but his adolescent

edge is getting a little dull - like the kid at school who tells the same

joke 50 times, and doesn't  realize it stopped being funny the second time

around.

As the third, and wimpiest, son of the Devil (played by a playful Harvey

Keitel), Sandler's Nicky is a disheveled doofus who's  so messed up even

the voice inside his head has a speech impediment.  When his bully brothers

head

up to Earth, freezing the gates of Hell, Nicky must bring them back to stop

his father's slow death by soul starvation.  Up top, he discovers a world

of

forbidden pleasures (Popeye's  chicken & Patricia Arquette), hidden dangers

(subway cars and crosswalks) and a horny talking bulldog named Mr. Beefy

who serves as a New York tour guide.

 As is the tradition with Saturday Night Live alums, there are cameos

aplenty, ranging from Rodney Dangerfield as Grandpa Satan to Quentin

Tarantino as a loud-mouthed street preacher.  And most of them are a

welcome relief in a movie sparsely populated by memorable punchlines.

Little Nicky doesn't so much make you laugh as begs you to.  Every joke

feels familiar, like a watered-down version of some SNL skit buried after

12:45.  And even the best scenes, like Nicky's revelation of the hidden

satanic messages in a Chicago album, were used up in the trailers two

months ago.

 The high-concept story set-up actually works against the homespun stooge

humor Sandler does best.  As an everyman-underdog-dimwit, he makes you

laugh. As a super-powered imbecile who can change himself into a horde of

spiders at will, he's  not much more than a special effect with a bad

haircut.

Sandler and his usual team of collaborators are just giving us what they

think we want.  Look, its Adam doing a funny voice!  Isn't that funny?!

Well, isn't it?

 No.

GRADE: C-