50 First Dates

50 First Dates

Starring: Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Rob Schneider, Blake Clark, Sean Astin

Director: Peter Segal

The film: Can a sappy romantic comedy premise pan out with enough unpredictability to hold viewer attention, build interesting oddball characters and elicit hearty laughs?

Noting Adam Sandler (Anger Management, Big Daddy) top the cast list of 50 First Dates with his co-star of 1998's schmaltzy hit The Wedding Singer, Drew Barrymore (Charlie's Angels, Scream), the prospects might not appear high; critics, however, lavished praise upon its big-screen release in February.

The storyline sounds a little iffy, inviting much predictability: Barrymore's character Lucy Whitmore has recently acquired, through an accident, a short-term memory capacity of 24 hours. Sandler's Henry Roth, strictly a quick-fling kind of guy, meets her and becomes quickly obsessed with the seemingly impossible challenge of winning her over for more than a day - despite that being his ideal relationship timeframe. Hence, the film title refers to his numerous efforts to make Whitmore fall for him.

As Roth's back-to-back efforts in courting Whitmore progress over around an hour of viewing time, there's plenty of room for cringe-worthy, preposterous and successful attempts - and much of this would make most people chuckle. And, interestingly, the obvious Groundhog Day formula - of knowing exactly what will happen when the same day repeats into infinity - is avoided; the backdrop for Roth's 'dates' is not static, with location, circumstance and Whitmore's reactions always being variable factors.