With stand-up turned movie star Adam Sandler, there's no middle ground. You either love his ludicrous frat boy antics, or bristle at his continued comic juvenilia. He's either a god, or a clod, depending on your own particular sense of humor. So it's no surprise that his films have failed to earn an equally consistent level of acceptance. For every Happy Gilmore or Billy Madison, there's a Little Nicky or I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. About the closest he's ever come to creating something that everyone can agree on is 1998's The Waterboy. By melding his crazed character development with the standard sports film formula, Sandler found a way to make most of the mainstream happy.

Robert "Bobby" Boucher Jr. (Sandler) is a repressed mama's boy who is obsessed with water. In fact, his prized possession is a vile of "high quality H2O" from a magic glacier. Still, his backwoods battleaxe of a mother (Kathy Bates) thinks that everything in the world is "the devil" and is desperate to protect her somewhat stunted adult son. As the waterboy for the local college football team, Bobby is the laughingstock on campus. One day, his rage spills over into action, and his tackling skills impress the coach (Henry Winkler). In an instant, Bobby becomes a member of the squad, earning the begrudging respect of the other players and the growing affections of local gal Vicki Vallencourt (Fairuza Balk). While his mother panics and the community rallies, Bobby somehow leads the team to the championship game.

For Sandler, comedy clearly starts in the oddest of places -- the vocal cords. All throughout his rollercoaster career, the comedian has put on funny accents and oral affectations to bolster his otherwise weak narratives. From the Northeastern wise-ass to the demonic douche, he's all about the way a character plays and less about the actual jokes involved. The Waterboy follows this particular pattern to a T-formation. In Bobby Boucher, Sandler finds the kind of quirky innocence mixed with mischievousness that fits his style perfectly. He then surrounds himself with faces unusual (Bates, Balk) and typical (Winkler) to work through a series of setups, pratfalls, and partial payoffs.

The results are often very funny, if still part of a recognizable entertainment design. Winkler's coaching rivalry with an arrogant old cuss (played expertly by country music legend Jerry Reed) is destined to unfold within the final game, and Bobby's on again/off again involvement in the game has its pre-planned plot contrivances. Not enough is done with Balk's Vallencourt, a good time girl whose dark rebel routine really adds to the ambience. Even Bates, who many thought was "slumming" when she took on this role, delivers a terrific turn as the domineering matriarch hoping to hide her son from the horrors of the real world. As an ensemble, The Waterboy works. With Sandler sometimes pushed into the background, the movie can settle in and explore the typical "final game" dynamics.

This is not to take anything away from our superstar lead. There is something rather endearing about Bobby's slow-witted naiveté, a genuineness that Sandler manages to tap into effortlessly. And he really tries to blend in with the rest of the cast, becoming part of a larger company rather than simply stealing the movie out from under everyone. Of course we know where all of this is going, the lack of surprises draining even the championship contest of all suspense. But in an entertainment dynamic that's been more scattered than consistent, The Waterboy proves that Adam Sandler can pander to most of the people some of the time. It's a genial little gem of a comedy.