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This is the special edition of Billy Madison that I picked up in a special two-pack called the Billy Madison / Happy Gilmore Collection. It came in an awesome slipcase where both sides of the slipcase had a flip open case that was velcro’ed down.
The Main Characters
--Billy Madison (Adam Sandler) is the son of a well-known and rich hotel mogul. To inherit his father’s fortune, he must complete grades 1-12 again.
--Veronica Vaughn (Bridgette Wilson) is one of the teacher’s Billy meets along the way. She becomes his romantic interest and helps him get through school.
--Eric Gordon (Bradley Whitford) is the vice president to Mr. Madison and feels he deserves the company. He will stop at nothing to get Billy to fail at school and get the company.
The Setting
They mention the company starting in Long Island.
The Plot
Billy Madison is an immature and lazy man. He lives in luxury, drinking and floating in his pool all day. His father is a very well-known and rich hotel mogul who has amassed quite a fortune. He wants to retire soon and plans on giving his company to Eric Gordon, his vice president, but Billy balks at that idea. He feels he deserves the company since he’s his son. Billy and his father then strike a deal. If Billy can complete grades 1-12 in 24 weeks, he will inherit the company. If not, it’s Eric’s. Eric feels it is his to lose since a slacker like Billy couldn’t hope to complete school.
Billy starts going to school as motivated as ever. He even meets and falls for Veronica Vaughn, his third grade teacher. They become involved romantically and she assists him in completing all his grades. Billy is coming close to the end of completing school when Eric gets nervous and threatens the principal of Billy’s school. Eric will oust principal Max Anderson’s horrid past if he doesn’t claim Billy bribed him to complete school. What’s the secret he threatens him with? That he used to be a Mexican masked wrestler who killed someone accidentally in the ring.
It seems Eric has the company when Billy’s third grade pals come to his rescue and confront Max with the truth. He rescinds his statement and they decide the company will be determined in an academic decathlon between Billy and Eric.
Movie Review
This is Adam at his immature best. Razor-thin plot? Sure. Any sort of redeeming qualities? Probably not. When all is said and done though, you have a great waste of an hour and a half. If you’re familiar with Adam’s most recent movies and enjoy those, this is a totally different film. It has no smart comedy; it’s just dumb, immature humor. And it has it in great quantity. It’s dumber and more immature than Happy Gilmore. It’s Adam Sandler at his stupid best. He is the main focus of this film and does a beautiful job of carrying his first starring role. The supporting cast rounds out the cast nicely. There’s Norm MacDonald as one of Billy’s dumb friends, Chris Farley as a bus driver, and Steve Buscemi as a crazy guy. Like I said, if you’ve seen Adam’s more recent movies and enjoyed them, this is a completely different movie. It’s really for Sandler fans, or fans of immature comedies. I’d recommend it though. **1/2.
DVD Features
A) Extras
1) Deleted Scenes (32:54)
There are 6 sets of deleted scenes: The Pool, Penguins and Pornography, Billy at Home, Being Billy, School Days, Eric and Principle Anderson, Academic Decathlon and Graduation.
The Penguins and Pornography has a bunch of scenes of Billy and his two pals futzing around the pool. Billy chasing the Penguin while some of the workers laugh at him. There’s a lot more with Norm and the other dude talking about being horny and Norm telling him that he can’t be horny, that’s only for women, men get laid. Billy walks up and tells them he’s going back to school then he chases Norm telling him he’s horny. There’s a scene with Norm and Ms. Lippy, which is weird. Billy studying while his friends look at nudie magazines, and a whole lot of nudie magazine scenes.
Billy at Home has a scene with Billy grabbing his clothes from Juanita as she says she wants to squeeze his ass. Billy getting brought into his fathers room to hear about the news, and Billy’s reaction and Eric flying like an eagle. Billy scratching his ass for no reason, then setting his alarm clock crying then having a one on one with his father. Billy talking to Juanita about school and work. Billy orchestrating a kickball game and knocking the chauffeur out, and then choking the umpire. Billy trying to fall asleep, then Juanita trying to wake him up.
Being Billy has some random Billy scenes with his pals. A funny one is him throwing his keys short of a valet man and seeing him dive for it, spray painting Eric’s car, Billy telling the old man it’s shit and apologizing for it as the old man laughs at him, while stepping in the shit. Billy learning to cook. More with the song, with Norm singing and other deleted parts.
School days has more with dodge ball, Ms. Lippy being crazy, Billy graduating from first grade, Billy celebrating winning the spelling bee, a very funny locker room scene, Billy doing pullups, Billy in high school, and the full O’Doyle car crash.
Eric and Principal Anderson has more scenes with Eric and Anderson. It shows what an asshole Eric is, with his statue, bribing Principal Anderson with 1 million dollars, a car and a free hotel room anywhere in the world. Principal Anderson looking for his wrestling gear, and Anderson confronting the kids as one of them runs away in his wrestling cape.
The final set of scenes has more with the academic decathlon. Billy running away not wanting to study, Principal Anderson attacking Eric, Billy’s graduation speech (saying Eric got shot in the ass), and having his father tell him he’s proud of him.
2) Outtakes (3:44)
These are outtakes that are all it is. Most of them are pretty funny.
3) Production Notes
7 pages of production notes about the film. They filmed in Ottawa and Adam wrote the movie with Tim Herlihy. He also said it’s the closest he came to playing himself.
4) Feature Commentary
Director Tamar Davis does the commentary. Tamra enjoyed the shirtless scenes with Adam and she mentions she doesn’t really know where the penguin came from. She came on the film later, and she says Universal wanted her as the original director but Adam hired a director friend of his, and he only lasted 4 days. Tamra came on then and had to turn the film around. Amazingly, she never heard of the flaming shit gag before. Tamra says there was really no pressure from the studio since they weren’t expecting much from the film. In the dodge ball scene, Adam was really hitting those kids, but only by offer. The kids raised their hands when they wanted to get hit, and after cuts some would actually cry. Tamra mentions some shots she didn’t do that are in the film then mentions she was working on another film (Bad Girls) that she was fired from and she was called to this movie a few days later. So she was fired from a movie and called to work on a movie that someone else was fired from. Tamra mentions how wrong it is to make fun of someone reading. Covert was supposed to be the other friend to Norm MacDonald, but film politics and casting prevented that. They said that during the shoot, Adam, Chris, David Spade and Gwyneth Paltrow (yes Adam knew her) would play the death game, where they’d each fake a death, and also do some Chippendale fake dancing which would appear on SNL later on. Steve Buscemi was good friends with Adam, too and the list of people on his to kill list were all people working on the movie.
B) Audio/Video
The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS 5.1. There are French and Spanish tracks as well in DD2.0. Of course there are subtitles for the three languages. The movie is presented in anamorphic widescreen in 1.85:1 scope.
C) Liner Notes
Just a piece of paper with some pictures and some writing from Billy Madison. There are also some ads for other DVDs.
D) Easter Eggs
None
Overall Review
There are some trailers before the menu pops up, for Dazed and Confused, Fast Times in Ridgemont High, Chronicles of Riddick and the Bourne Supremacy. As a DVD, it’s a bit better than Happy Gilmore, just because the commentary is on there. Could it be better? Of course. Both DVD’s suffered from a lack of anything special, aside from the deleted scenes. Where’s the usual trailer? The best would’ve been to have Adam do a commentary for both movies, seeing as these are the first two movies that started his career and it would’ve been great to hear him reflect on it. Overall, you have to take what you can get. The DVD is alright. I wouldn’t recommend purchasing either DVD separately. Get the two-pack for cheaper. The movie is still great in it’s immatureness, and the deleted scenes/outtakes are fun to watch. I can’t fully recommend it since it seems like something’s missing, but it’s Adam at his best.
Overall Rating
6.5
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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