Why couldn’t The Happening have come out this past weekend? Unfortunately, I was with the wonderful choices of reviewing Kung Fu Panda or You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. Knowing I would probably like the animated movie more, I bit the bullet and went to see Zohan instead. My mistake.

Zohan (Adam Sandler) is an Israeli special forces agent. While he possesses near superhuman abilities and enjoys a rock star life style, his dream is to move to New York to cut hair. An opportunity comes up for him to fake his death and sneak out of the country. Once in New York he manages to get a position in a small Palestinian hair salon where he quickly rises to stardom. He then has to deal with problems from his former life when he is recognized as the presumedly dead agent Zohan.

There are so many things painfully wrong with this movie that I’ll start with the most obvious thing… Sandler’s package. There’s nothing wrong with some fun genital humor when it’s well placed but his package should have second billing in the credits. There is so much screen time for his salami sling that it could be considered for best supporting actor in a comedic role at the next MTV Movie Awards. The writers went to the well 18 times too many with that one.

Sandler’s package wasn’t the only humor gimmick abused in this film. Everything that managed to be funny once is repeated so often that it ceases to be effective. It’s like the script writer had a bad mental block and became stuck on repeat.

One of the other major obstacles are the accents. They are so exaggerated that on several occasions you could hear other movie patrons asking their friends, “I didn’t catch that. What did he say, again?” I understand going over the top on the accent but if your audience can’t understand you then it needs to be dialed back a bit.

Another detriment to the film are the useless guest appearances. What’s their point? Not only do they do little to add any humor, in some instances they’re just plain bad. This is most obvious with Chris Rock. I love him but he can’t do a decent Jamaican accent to save his life!

Even though this movie is a train wreck, it did manage two competent achievements. The underlying message that most everyday people are tired of the fighting and just want to live their lives is a surprise message coming from such a bungled film. I think this fact holds true to many situations here and around the world at this point in history.

The other good thing I got from this movie is Emmanuelle Chriqui. I officially have a new celebrity crush (see last week’s issue)! She’s so beautiful it was difficult watching because she made everyone else in the movie look ugly. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that her career will skyrocket from here. Well, it can only go up from being in Zohan.

My official recommendation is go watch this only if your air conditioning isn’t working, you’re risking heat stroke, have to find somewhere cool to recover and all the other movies in the theater happen to be sold out. Then it might be worth it. Maybe.

Verdict | NOT