Jack and Jill

2011
Directed by Dennis Dugan

Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries…how did this movie get made???

Oh, boy.

Do you love jokes about explosive diarrhea? Do you love seeing great actors slumming it in a film where they’re sexually obsessed with a man in drag? Do you live films that give characters quirks instead of doing any characterization at all?

Fictitious depiction of a Jack and Jill audience…

Finally, I can hush the naysayers who keep saying “nay” when I try to explain that just because I’ve sold out and get free movie passes and dump trucks filled with money and drugs and keep giving all those films positive reviews, that I’m not a shill. Because there is no way in Hell that Jack and Jill will get a positive review, because the dump truck was three minutes late! And also pretend I worked a “Knights who say ‘Ni'” joke in there that was actually funny, unlike every other reference to the Knights who say “Ni” ever. Even this one.

Actual depiction of a Jack and Jill audience…

Jack and Jill sucks. I can’t say going into this one I had much high hopes. But I was wishing for maybe something passable. I like some of Sandler’s older work, but I can’t think of anything lately he’s done that I’ve even bothered with. Parts of Jack and Jill seem like they’re trying to ape the older style, but the jokes just do not work. A homeless guy randomly for Thanksgiving dinner, so he can say wacky things. A kid who tapes things to himself, because that is wacky. A bird that says random phrases, because it’s wacky. A daughter who is always in a costume and has a doll that is always in an identical costume…wacky! All seem like they would be funny, but no. Luckily, there are fart jokes to fall back on! Those work…if you’re high on wacky-tabacky! Which probably means you wandered into the wrong theater when trying to check out Harold and Kumar 3.

She’s totally not crazy. Now can I have my dog back unharmed, Scientologists?

Jack (Adam Sandler) – Jack is an ad executive and a jerk, who will randomly do something sort of kind just as the audience is turning against him. Jill (Adam Sandler) – Jill is his twin sister who is only slightly annoying. But the movie reassures us over and over that she’s the most annoying thing ever, despite evidence to the contrary.

Jack and Jill treats women like it does to the audience