It’s been out for one day, and Jack and Jill has already earned the rare distinction of a 0% rating from “top critics” on Rotten Tomatoes. (Technically it has a 2% from “all critics,” which means there is one very unpopular “bottom critic” out there.) Combined with Bucky Larson, which is still enjoying its own 0%, this makes two comically colossal flops written by Adam Sandler this season. And we know what that means…comically over-the-top negative reviews!
Take this opening line from Time Magazine’s Mary Pols: “More than 24 hours has passed since I watched the new Adam Sandler movie Jack and Jill and I am still dead inside.” Willie Waffle of DC50 claims, “Jack and Jill is the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life.” He continues: “Jack and Jill is not so much a movie, but a challenge to your soul. Maybe it is designed to make us wonder if there is a God, and if he will save you from this disaster. He won’t.” “Picture Tootsie if everyone in the cast had a head injury,” suggests Hitfix’s Drew McWeeney.
Speaking of Tootsie, many reviewers were especially offended by Sandler’s performance as Jill. “When it comes to women in Sandler’s world, he only sees extremes: hot or not, worthy of putting on a pedestal or getting hit with one,” says Robert Abele in the LA Times. “In the wake of Bridesmaids, Sandler’s lipsticked tomfoolery — and inability to share the screen with genuinely funny women — feels particularly regressive and stale.” A.O. Scott of the New York Times minces fewer words, straight-up calling Sandler’s drag performance an exhibition of “the woman-hatred that has always propelled his infantile shtick.” But at least Al Pacino is good? His weirdly intense commitment yields his “most convincing performance in years,” according to Scott. Way to look on the bright side!
