...and this is not necessarily a good thing. This new addition to the Sandler Netflix original lineup is not his worst work but that is only because The Ridiculous 6 is pretty tough to beat as far as being a bad film is concerned. In Hubie Halloween he returns to being a dumb but good-natured man-child who doesn't fit in with adults or children and is relentlessly bullied by both groups.
The film is family-friendly and has a few interesting moments of brilliance but for the most part I would rank this one near the bottom of Sandler's films for a number of reasons.
This is the last film in Sandler's contract with Netflix but there are rumors that they extended it and also gave Adam another massive pile of money for the opportunity. This kind of leads back to what I have always thought about Sandler: Even though his movies tend to be bad more often than they are good, he still is a massive draw. I think this is because he has just enough really good movies that we are always kept guessing on whether or not the next one will be epic.
Hubie Halloween is not epic
[src](https://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/hubie-halloween-adam-sandler-netflix.jpg?w=780)For one thing, when you are watching this you can't help but notice that this character is something that we have seen from Adam at times in the past. He is a hybrid of Little Nicky and Waterboy as far as his mannerisms and immaturity is concerned and he even sounds like them as well. I suppose it would be unreasonable for us to expect him to have a different voice but I can't help but feel as though I'm watching Waterboy 2: The Halloweenening when I watched this.
Of course he brings along all of his pals for a payday like he always does and most of their characters are just as silly as Hubie is. I would imagine that Adam brings along the usual suspects to his films because they are friends and they get along on set... and since Adam almost certainly calls all the shots on these things he is able to get away with doing exactly that.
Tim Meadows, Maya Rudolph, Steve Buscemi, Kevin James, and of course Rob Schneider (can't stand that guy) are all in this movie doing the roles that you would imagine they do.
I suppose if I was to say anything positive about this film, because it is seriously dumb, is that Sandler has returned to his silly roots in this one where he portrays a character that is lovable and has good intentions and it is actually society and hot him that is the problem. Hubie is someone that is looking out for everyone in the community and genuinely wants the best for everyone else but he is punished and taken advantage of for his generosity. It seems only his mother really appreciates him and the story about the fallacies of bullying are a good lesson that could be learned by everyone that watches this.
There is very little in the way of swearing or sexuality in this, so the movie can be watched by anyone and honestly, I think kids would probably appreciate this film a lot more than adults are going to.
It was nice to see Julie Bowen in her role of Violet Velentine and it wasn't until I thought about it for a while that I even remembered that she played Sandler's love interest in Happy Gilmore. An interesting homage to that role is the double-V name as her name in Happy was Virginia Venit. If you ask me Julie Bowen is better looking now than she was 24 years ago.
Should I watch it?
It depends. If you are the type of person that is going to complain if Sandler does a silly movie (which he tends to... it is kind of his thing) then you are not going to enjoy this because that is exactly what this film is. For me, this filled a Halloween void that we likely are not going to get a great deal of this year because of Covid and therefore it was a welcome thing. The film, however, is nothing particularly special.
