Adam Sandler (“Happy Gilmore”, “Just Go With It”) made his debut in “Going Overboard”. This is a film that seems to be almost universally hated, even by Sandler fans and Sandler himself. To me, it’s not any worse than “Little Nicky” but it’s still pretty atrocious. To its credit, it was made with a tiny budget and it’s not as mean as many of his later movies.

Sandler stars as Schecky Moskowitz, a worker on a cruise ship that aspires to be a stand-up comedian. He hopes for his big break but is having a hard time trying to win the hearts of the passengers. Unfortunately, his comedy career may have to go on hold when the ship is taken over by armed gunmen.

Sandler has never been somebody that I’ve found particularly funny so he seems perfectly suited to playing a lacklustre comedian in this movie. The movie also features Billy Zane (“The Phantom”) as King Neptune. I bet he never imagined that he would go from doing a terrible cruise movie like this to doing the financially successful and critically acclaimed “Titanic”. You also have Burt Young (“Rocky”) as Manuel Noriega. It’s so odd to see the dictator of Panama thrown into the mix. It’s also really strange that while this film actually has a scene that spoofs “Rocky”, it doesn’t have Young in that particular sequence.

“Going Overboard” looks dirt cheap and it’s definitely a bad movie. I think that the jokes are lame, I found the story to be nonsensical and the characters are bland. There are also several cringeworthy moments where Sandler turns and talks straight to the camera. The whole movie is just lazy and so clearly put together by people that don’t really know what they are doing. I think I’d rather go overboard off a real cruise ship than watch this film again.