The first-time team-up between Adam Sandler and choreographer-director-producer Adam Shankman, the result was a little not-here-nor-there.
The main problem here is how the script is not really well thought-out. In terms of characterisation, in one scene you’ll see Skeeter treating an old lady with much compassion, but when he first meets Keri Russell’s character, he turns into a real jerk for no apparent reason.
Russell Brand and the very cute Teresa Palmer’s characters were not properly written in as well. Palmer playing the hotellier’s daughter never explain why she was not the next heir to the hotel empire, and Brand with such a big role in the movie was always only there as dialogue-fodder. Courtney Cox appearing once in a while was a total waste.
As for the story progression, there were more plot holes than one can count. Despite it being a fantasy genre, there are just too many events happening and the writers are not giving any explanations for. The biggest frustration being how or why the bedtime stories were coming to life and only affecting Sandler.
However, the fantasy sequences that range from days of the Roman Empire to futuristic space worlds were visually pleasing and looked truly grand. Shankman knows how to bring colours and verve to the set pieces even though the production was far from being the most expensive.
Then again, after focusing on certain characters in the dream world, they didn’t help in explaining the dream as they add naught to the storyline and just disappear as suddenly as they had came.
Perhaps it all boils down to the direction by Shankman, or maybe because of the new partnership between the two Adams that both Shankman and Sandler are finding hard to express themselves fully, or even had to compensate for each other. But either way, Bedtime Stories showed nothing close to what Shankman is capable of like in Hairspray; and Sandler was still the same old Sandler – a good thing or a bad thing will depend on you.
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