Despite receiving a marked lack of critical acclaim, The Waterboy, a comedy about a moronic college football team waterboy, won audiences over in the United States with a first week gross of almost $40 million, which is a very impressive box-office performance. Thus my expectations for a good time was high when I went to watch The Waterboy last week. As the movie progressed, and the laughs came in, it was easy to see why The Waterboy made such a big impact at the box-office. (Which just goes to show that, like the Titanic, how critical reviews don't count and how box-office receipts do.)

Directed by Frank Coraci (The Wedding Singer) and produced by Jack Giarraputo (The Wedding Singer), The Waterboy provides yet another vehicle for Adam Sandler, the star of other comedies such as Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore and the more recent The Wedding Singer, to churn out more of his comic antics. It also stars Acadamy Award-winner Kathy Bates (Titanic, Primary Colors), Fairuza Balk (The Island Of Dr. Moreau, The Craft), veteran actor and producer Henry Winkler and country singer Jerry Reed.

In The Waterboy, Adam Sandler acts as Bobby Boucher, a moronic and socially inept 31-year-old (yes, that's right, 31-year-old) college football team waterboy. His over-protective mother (Kathy Bates) has sheltered him all his life and given him a rather unusual education, where women, electricity and football are thought of as products of the 'devil'.

Now, Bobby has been bullied and picked upon all his life by college football players, and when he finally fights back, he is revealed as a superb tackler. Thus Coach Klein (Henry Winkler) decides to give him a tryout for the team and the result is a new star player for the Mud Dogs, a college football team which never wins (they've lost their last 40 games) and whose cheerleaders and even mascot come to the game drunk. This pathetic scenario is further compounded by the fact that their assistant coach Farmer Fran (Blake Clark) speaks in an unintelligible mixed-up Cajun accent which nobody (and I do mean nobody!) understands.

The bad guy in The Waterboy comes in the form of Red Beaulieu (Jerry Reed), the nasty and detestable coach of one of the top football teams in the league, the Cougars. He's the cause of Coach Klein's regular nervous breakdowns when way back in the 70's, he stole Coach Klein's book of football plays from right under Coach Klein's nose. (The scene of the theft is hilariously shown with both the coaches sporting wacky 70's hairstyles.) Since that fateful day, Coach Klein has never regained his confidence and self-esteem. Vicki Vallencourt (Fairuza Balk) is the love interest in Bobby Boucher's life. She's a tough, aggressive motorcycle babe who is always in and out of jail. (Needless to say, she is thought of as the 'devil' by Bobby's mama.)

Thus, with Mama thinking 'foozball' and school is the 'devil', Bobby has to go behind mama's back playing football with the excuse everytime he comes back from practice bruised all over, that he has been set upon by a giant gorilla which has escaped from the zoo. And with Bobby terrifying the lights out of opposition teams, the Mud Dogs begin to win and thus bring about a final confrontation with Red Beaulieu's team, the Cougars.

Set in the murky Bayou swamps of Louisiana, The Waterboy has a mediocre plot that at times seem to make the movie quite predictable. However, between Adam Sandler being his usual comic and funny self and Kathy Bates superb acting as the over-protective mother, the movie still manages to do what it's supposed to do. That is, Entertain! The storyline is enhanced by Fairuza Balk's character, Vicki Vallencourt, who is a very unconventional love interest. She is a tattooed biker's babe, prone to committing crimes and not afraid to stand up to Bobby's overbearing mother. Most definitely a refreshing change from the simpering, weak and prone to scream at the first sight of trouble female character we usually see.