**
Cast: Adam Sandler, Joey Lauren Adams, Cole and Dylan Sprouse
Director: Dennis Dugan
Rating: PG
Review: Naomi Larkin
Sonny Koufax (Sandler) is a law school graduate who does not want to grow up.
He works in a toll booth one day a week, watches television and eats takeaways for the remaining six.
Then, in
a misguided attempt to impress his girlfriend, he adopts Julian after the five-year-old boy is dumped on his doorstep and pretends to be his biological father.
His girlfriend promptly ditches him in favour of an older man with "goals and a five-year-plan."
As an act of rebellion against his own father, Sonny adopts a freestyle approach to bringing up Julian, and allows him to do whatever he wants.
Sandler (The Waterboy, The Wedding Singer and Happy Gilmore), who also co-wrote Big Daddy, seems to be carving himself a niche in mindless comedy for the masses.
But there is no humour in watching a five-year-old, who has just lost his mother, wet the bed only to have the wet patch covered with newspaper and the child forced to sleep on top of it. Nor is it amusing to watch a youngster being taught to throw a stick in the path of roller-bladers so they injure themselves, or to urinate in public.
Call me old-fashioned but this is not funny - it's cruel.
The constant reference to one of the woman's breasts and her former life as a waitress at a "Hooters" restaurant is not only devoid of mirth but is pathetic and sexist.
That said, Big Daddy does have some redeeming features: the Sprouse brothers outshine the adults in their role as Julian, there are patches of silliness which provoke a giggle, and the ending is not totally predictable.
