Adam Sandler: 5 Awesome Performances and 5 That Sucked

3. Little Nicky (2000)

With Little Nicky, almost as though he was fighting against the criticism that he always plays himself, Sandler seemed to attempt something completely out of his comfort zone. Essentially his character here is a hell-spawn demon with a speech impediment. Admittedly, you can€™t really get further from Happy Gilmore than that. However, the main problem with Little Nicky is that, as a character and as a turned in performance, he€™s probably the most grating and gimmicky in the entire Sandler canon. He€™s clearly not all that comfortable putting on Nicky€™s silly rasping voice, or holding that sideways grimace the whole time; you could probably argue that Little Nicky would have been infinitely more watchable if he€™d just scrapped the whole gimmick and gone full on Happy Gilmore with it. But not, he stays the course, which I suppose you should give him some credit for. However, performance wise, Sandler is far from on fire here, which is ironic considering he€™s supposed to be from Hell.
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Contributor

Stuart believes that the pen is mightier than the sword, but still he insists on using a keyboard.