The Waterboy (1998)
6/10
Not as funny as I remember
15 January 2004
Warning: Spoilers
The Waterboy is one of those movies that I really loved as a kid, I was 12 years old when this movie came out and I thought it was just the most hilarious movie I had ever seen. So growing up I re-watched it thinking that I would still enjoy the movie as much as I did when I was younger. But honestly I wasn't laughing as much as I did when I was 12, I think because it was for the most part it was just junior high humor. Is The Waterboy a funny movie? Yeah, I'm not going to lie, I still got a few good laughs out of it; it's just baffling to me that a grown man could make millions of dollars while making baby voices, that's the power of Adam Sandler.

Bobby Boucher, a pretty stupid, stuttering, water boy with anger issues due to constant teasing and his mother's excessive sheltering. He was the water boy for the University of Louisiana Cougars or the past 18 years, but the players tormented him, and the team's head coach, Coach Red Beaulieu, fired him for disrupting his team's practices. He later goes to Coach Klein, coach of the Mud Dogs, and volunteers to work as the team's water boy for free after seeing the filthy water that the coach provides his players. During his first few hours of being waterboy for the Mud Dogs, one of the players spits into the water can. A flashback is then seen when the waterboy was a young kid working for the Cougars. Coach Beaulieu refuses the right for the waterboy to retaliate against one of his players for spitting in the cooler. Coach Klein notices his anger problem and encourages Bobby to stand up for himself instead of letting the players walk all over him. After Grenouille, the team's captain taunts him, Bobby then sees flashbacks of the people that also made his life a living hell. Bobby then effortlessly runs onto the field, grunting and growling in sheer anger and tackles Grenouille, shocking the whole team and prompting Coach Klein to put him on the field, with positive results. Despite his overprotective mother's disapproval, he secretly continues to play football, and also secretly goes to school. He uses his anger to tackle the opposing players by pretending they're the people who made fun of him throughout his life. He quickly becomes one of the most feared linebackers in college football and love interest of Vicki Vallencourt.

While The Waterboy is stupid in a lot of moments, over all it's just a harmless comedy that is just for fun. I still love quoting certain lines to it, especially when Bobby attacks his college professor because his mama was insulted. Another reason I can't hate this movie is that this was the time that Adam Sandler was actually funny and we enjoyed seeing his movies. I think the reason why people just didn't respond as well to this movie as his other films was due to the fact that a lot of his movies are the same plot with a different character: Happy Gilmore or Billy Madison. The Wedding Singer was his first movie that was completely original and that's why it's so well loved. But I still would recommend seeing The Waterboy for a few good laughs, you have to love some of the fantasies that Bobby comes up with, such as "Water sucks, Gatorade tastes better", you'll have to see what I mean, but trust me, it's a good scene.

6/10
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