Forget the likes of Jim Carrey, Chris Farley and Pauly Shore, for the bottom line in dumb comedy you have to look to the interminable mugging and dopey grin of Adam Sandler. Despite a relatively appealing spin in Airheads, Sandler proves that whatever Carrey has he keeps it to himself because Billy Madison is the least funny, least likeable of all the Saturday Night Live offshoots that have struggled to latch onto Carrey's dumb comedy phenomenon.
The plot's despairing banality has Sandler as rich kid Billy returning to school to gain the education he so obviously missed in order to inherit his pop's multi-billion dollar company. If he flunks, ambitious corporate slime Brad Whitford will take over. The other problem is that he has to whizz through the 12 grades in just 24 weeks. What ensues is Sandler as a grown-up school kid, falling for cute teacher Bridgette Wilson, chumming up with the sprogs and spouting bad toilet gags.
Where Dumb And Dumber was clever enough to play dumb to amuse the child in all of us, this suffers under the illusion that just having a central character blissfully unaware of the need for a brain is actually a funny concept. Sandler's shtick is unfathomable: he grins, he does monkey impressions, he does doe-eyes to pull teach and he has a virtually unintelligible voice. Okay, a couple of sniggers sneak out, but on the whole the effect is stone cold. The even worse news is that this no-laugh "comedy" made enough dosh in the US to encourage further investment in Sandler's career - Happy Gilmore will unhappily arrive this autumn. On current evidence loins should remain ungirded.
