The Wedding Singer

There's lots of amusing '80s nostalgia wrapped up in this mindless but cute romantic comedy. Adam Sandler plays the film's lovable lug, Robby Hart, a Van Halen wanna-be who ekes out a meager existence living in his sister's basement and pulling gigs as a wedding singer. On the other side of the romantic equation sits Julia (Drew Barrymore), a doe-eyed wedding caterer with a bouncy outlook on life. The two make an immediate connection, but as fate has it each is already engaged to someone else. Of course love finds a way, and after getting stiffed at the altar Robby realizes his heart's true desire and sets off after Julia in a series of comical missteps.

The plot, a formulaic siphoning of My Best Friend's Wedding and Four Weddings and a Funeral, is pitted with eddies of inert melodrama. What keeps things moving are the sprightly performances by Sandler and Barrymore. Sandler shows an emotional range beyond his usual mercurial knucklehead; Barrymore drops her adolescent nymph in favor of a more sensitive, mature persona. Allen Covert is a cheesy delight as Robby's sidekick, personifying the superficial gloss of '80s pop culture. The cameos by Steve Buscemi, Billy Idol, and Jon Lovitz are entertaining bits, and the soundtrack, a virtual who's who of the "Big '80s," tops that of Grosse Pointe Blank.

-- Tom Meek