50 First Dates - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

50 First Dates




Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
I feel like I’m getting old now, as I remember going with my wife to see this the year I graduated college. And according to the dates that means that was 22 years ago..which makes me..yeah, not gonna go there! Anywhoo, for those of us millennials and younger Gen X folks, Adam Sandler was a staple comedian back in the 90s and early 2000s. Back then he was putting out smash hit after smash hit, ruling the rom com market until about 2007 when his career started to falter. Partially because his man baby schtick was wearing thing, but partially because the Rom Com in general was fading fast. Audiences were going to the theater less and less for comedies, and Rom Coms in particular were taking a bit of a nose dive. Before Sandler, David Spade, Rob Schneider and everyone else in that ilk started fading into the sunset, we still had a few hits left in the tank, with 50 First Dates being one of the last of the decent ones before his films moved to streaming only, or were only made due to him wanting to go on a vacation and use the excuse of a Hollywood film to fund said trip.

Set and filmed in Hawaii, 50 First Dates basically a Groundhog Day tale, except told through the lens of the guy having to convince a girl who loses her memory every night that he’s in love with her. Young Lucy Whitmore (Drew Barrymore) was involved in a tragic car accident the year before, which resulted in a head injury that effectively blocks her from forming new memories. She can remember everything up until the accident, but anything after the accident doesn’t set into permanent memory over night. So every morning she wakes up thinking that it’s the same day just before the accident happens, and her father (Blake Clark) and brother Doug (Sean Astin) do everything they can to keep the fact that it ISN’T a different day so that she can live out her life in peace. Even if that means they have to tiptoe around her to keep the poor girl from finding out that her life effectively ended a year ago.

And then come in Henry Roth (Adam Sandler), a serial pickup artist who enjoys wining and dining the tourists and giving them the week of their life before they go back to their mainland jobs. And it works for him. He gets a new girl every week, they remember the lies and pillow talk that he spun around them, and no biggie. That is, until he meets Lucy one fateful morning and starts falling in love with her. Finding out about her medical condition, Henry is already a bit more smitten than he though. So, in order to see if can make things work, Henry makes it his life mission to meet Lucy in the same spot every morning, and do his best to have her fall in love with him every day.

50 First Dates is technically not the greatest Rom Com on earth. And frankly, it’s not even the best Adam Sandler Rom Com. But for those flaws and cracks in the armor of the 90s comedy god, 50 First Dates makes all that up and more by simply being charming and genuinely sweet. Adam and Drew have had amazing on screen chemistry ever since The Wedding Singer, and whenever the two are on screen you can’t take your eyes off of them. Not to mention that the story is genuinely really cute as well. Sure, the movie has some problematic themes if you really think about them, and Rob Schneider is a bit annoying (more than he usually is in an Adam Sandler movie), but for some reason the film works as a light and fluffy Romantic Comedy as long as you don’t think TOO hard about it.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 on appeal for crude sexual humor and drug references




4K Video: Video:

Sony’s catalog 4K upgrades have almost always been stellar, and this is no different. I have no idea if there has been a modern day remaster for the film, or whether this is an older maser, but either way this is a great looking disc for sure. The bright and glossy look of lovely Hawaii really p9ops at every turn, with luscious greens and blues, with shades of brown and amber pushing through at times. Facial tones look great, and fine details superb all the way around. You can see the actual razor burn on Sandler’s face at times, and even a few crows feet around Barrymore’s eyes that I’ve never seen before. The Dolby Vision adds some wonderful pop to all of the colors considering this is an eye candy disc, and the black scenes are rich and inky without any crush or banding that I could see. Simply put, this is about as flawless as you’re going to get, and I could not find ANY problems with the encode whatsoever.






Audio:

While Sony has a good track record of putting Atmos tracks on their catalog titles, I will admit that I was a tad surprised to see it on 50 First Dates. Not because of any technical reason, just the fact that this is a Rom Com and I don’t usually see the studios putting that much effort into an object based encode for a film of this ilk. It’s not going to be a massively active mix that shocks and awes, but the new Atmos rendering makes the 5.1 mix feel a little outdated. It opens up the sound stage ever so slightly, pushing the needle drop score into the overheads and rears at times, or the lapping of the waves or squawking of walrus huffing pushing out into said extra channels. Bass is punchy and clean for the music, but other than that its a fairly mild mannered track. And while this Atmos mix is not going to push boundaries or make you feel like you’re in the center of a some ultra nuanced mix, but rather it takes an already excellent Sony 5.1 mix and subtly adds layer and depth to it. Pretty much perfection for the genre.

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Extras:

• Director's Log: The Making of They Will Kill You
• Audio Commentary - A legacy track with Drew Barrymore and director Peter Segal.
• The Dating Scene: The Making of 50 First Dates
• Talkin' Pidgin
• Comedy Central "Reel Comedy" Special
• NEW! HBO First Look
• Blooper Reel (7:03)
• Deleted Scenes
• "Hold Me Now" by Wayne Wonder
• Live Performance of "Amber" by 311*
• "Love Song" by 311*
• NEW! Theatrical Trailer

Final Score: ​

I know that 50 First Dates got varying reviews when it first came out 22 years ago, but I still find it one of those films that hits the sweet spot for when I want something cute and fluffy. It doesn’t bring anything new to the table per se, but the film works well enough to satisfy the craving for light hearted fare, and both Sandler and Barrymore just work well together, and it shows. Sony’s 4K UHD handily outclasses the 20 year old Blu-ray, and even offers up some new extras as well. So yeah, I’m still going to give this a solid thumbs up.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Rob Schneider, Sean Astin, Dan Aykroyd, Blake Clark
Directed by: Peter Segal
Written by: George Wing
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 HEVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English, French, Spanish DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Englsh, French, Spanish
Studio: Sony
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 99 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: June 23rd, 2026

Recommendation: Entertaining Watch