THE WEDDING SINGER (1998) **1/2 At his best Adam Sandler gives you the sense that he understands the problems of both contemporary society and contemporary music. As always there are several gloriously personalized musical nuggets, and they trot out a soundtrack that makes the '80s not sound all that bad: which makes it just beareable enough to listen to while you laugh at it. There's not incredible chemistry between Sandler and Drew Barrymore but they so transcend the rest of the cast, to say nothing of the plot and their own characters, that it's perfectly understandable that they need be and must get together. The mockery of the '80s as overly commercial as seen through the lens of the '90s is irony at its finest while the characters, the wedding father, the evil stockbroker, well meaning but inattentive sibling, are eternal archetypes. If the challenge of high humour is to make the spectator a better person this probably falls a little short; if the challenge to to entertain and give a good time, while pointing to principles that everyone should (but obviously don't) already know are there and adhere to, then The Wedding Singer hits some very crystalline high notes.
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