The WaterBoy

Adam Sandler is like a small child: Without proper supervision, he can become a danger to himself and other people.

OK, maybe he isn't dangerous. He's just irritating.

And in "The WaterBoy," a really dumb gridiron comedy, all of Sandler's worst tendencies are on display for all the world to see.

Instead of learning his lesson from "The Wedding Singer," which leashed the comic actor's more obnoxious tendencies, he reverts to one-note shtick and becomes tiresome in a big hurry.

And while the results aren't quite as bad as "Billy Madison," it's a definite step backward. Aside from a few guilty laughs, "The WaterBoy" really fumbles the ball.

Sandler stars as Bobby Boucher, a socially inept thirtysomething who's recently been fired from his job as the water boy for a college football team. Though his overprotective mother (Kathy Bates) is delighted to have him home, Bobby is despondent. In desperation, he volunteers his services to a neighboring college.

There, kindhearted but incompetent Coach Klein (Henry Winkler) encourages Bobby to stick up for himself and discovers the meek "water-distribution engineer" has a talent for tackling. In fact, with the addition of Bobby to the team, Coach Klein's losers begin winning and earn a birth to the prestigious Bourbon Bowl.

But just days before the big game, Bobby is banned from playing by the NCAA due to his less-than-spotless academic record. Worse still, Mama discovers that Bobby has been playing "the foosball," as she puts it, and forbids him from even associating with either Coach Klein or his new beautiful-but-deadly girlfriend, Vicki Vallencourt (Fairuza Balk).

It's clear where the story is going from here, and there aren't nearly enough laughs to justify some of the more mean-spirited gags.

Also, director Frank Coraci (who also directed "The Wedding Singer") doesn't seem to know whether he wants to steer the material in really outrageous territory (a la, "There's Something About Mary"), or whether to play up some semisweet moments. The film suffers as a result.

Performance-wise, Sandler seems uninspired, and it's discomforting to see Bates using such a blatantly bad Cajun accent. However, Winkler does have a few amusing scenes as the coach-verging-on-a-nervous-breakdown.

"The WaterBoy" is rated PG-13 for slapstick-style, athletic violence, profanity, vulgar sight gags and sexual humor, and male nudity.