What makes Rob Schneider’s movies so bad, (among many other million defects) is that Schneider is basically unlikable and incredibly obnoxious, and when he pretends to be a girl stuck in a man’s body, it’s just plain creepy. Not only that, but he’s such a horrible actor in both comedic form and dramatic form; much of that can be seen when he pretends to be the female Jessica played by Rachel McAdams and pretty much makes no effort in copying her exact mannerisms or body characteristics. In “Face/Off”, Travolta and Cage studied each other’s facial expressions, mannerisms, and even their modes of speech which made the film mostly tolerable, but in this Schneider simply acts homosexual more than a woman.
The problem is that Schneider makes no effort to mimic McAdams except relies on his own abilities, as few as they may be. His acting is horrid, and his comedic delivery is often too late and awkward. What opens the movie immediately causes me to judge this, is the opener with the superfluous and ridiculous special effects-laden Egyptian panorama shot followed by the origin of the mystical earrings is: 1. Redundant, 2. monotonous, and 3.tedious. Do we need to discover what the earrings are before the movie? Why not have the store clerks explain them when Jessica is marveling at them in the magic shop? The film starts off with some incredibly bad characters including Jessica who isn’t hot as the film promises.
She’s a broadly developed individual; is she snobbish, is she caring, or just misunderstood? The writers don’t let the audience know. Of course it doesn’t help that Schneider is one of the writers. We never get to understand her or know her which makes it hard to sympathize when she’s thrown into the horrible situation. I was never sure if McAdams and Schneider share this movie because there’s basically no main character. Also, we never learn about Schneider’s character, who he is, or what he’s doing? The origin of the earring is one of the largest plot holes in the film because the opener tells the audience one thing and then we’re given another.
In the opener, the queen switches souls with her servant to escape royalty, but in the present day Jessica switches bodies rather than switching souls. If it had followed its first course, Jessica would be a woman acting like a man, not a man acting like a woman, and their bodies wouldn’t switch. It’s confusing. The film’s comedy relies on basic eye-rolling unfunny clichés from bodily and toilet humor, crude offensive ethnic stereotypes including Asian girls pretending to be African American (to mention only a few), and sexual jokes ranging from homosexual stereotypes to lesbian kisses, to young boys dressing as girls. I didn’t expect a masterpiece, but it’s basic Rob Schneider at his worst.