VIDEO: The trailer for Bedtime Stories
After making You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Adam Sandler returns to his simpering manchild persona in this witless ode to "imagination" directed by Adam Shankman (the musical Hairspray).
His Skeeter is a handyman in the luxury hotel that began life as his late father's motel. His dream of taking over seems within reach when the bedtime stories he tells his niece and nephew start coming true. He can't, however, just spin a tale of snatching power; the kids embellish the stories with complications. The fantasyscapes — mediæval, Western, gladiator, space opera — are predictable, but a relief from the framing story, in which Skeeter introduces the children to forbidden junk food and video games.
Gags involve a booger monster, an angry dwarf, and a computer-generated guinea pig. "I'm like the stink on your feet. I'll always be around," Skeeter reassures the children, and Sandler his audience.