There have been times when I've thought that the reason I was put on the Earth was to keep a strict watch on Adam Sandler. There he was, being his rude, crude, fidgety self with bad posture, and there I was in the screening room, ready to jump into the movie to smash him over the nose with a fly swatter. It's amazing how Sandler still has a career after all his attempts to flush it down the toilet, and in my book he heads the list of "Incredible Hollywood Job Survivors," with Johnny Knoxville coming in a distant second.

It is my duty to tell you, however, that "The Cobbler" is the best thing Sandler has done in a long, long time. For one thing, he plays a guy who's very nice to his mom. Secondly, there are times when his back is almost straight, but that could be because he's wearing other peoples' shoes.

Sandler plays Max Simkin, a resident of New York who has continued the family business of repairing shoes, and who lives with his mother, Sarah (Lynn Cohen), in a red-brick house. Droopy and sad by nature and bored by the daily grind, Max longs to close up the shop. But then, a miracle! His dad's old sewing machine in the basement enables Max to turn into the person whose shoes he fixed using said machine — as long as the shoe size matches his. Max finds confidence and a purpose in life by turning into people he had always wanted to be: a DJ, a gangster — even his dad, who disappeared one day when Max was a kid and never came back.