For the record, I’ve only liked one Adam Sandler movie, Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliantly surreal musical-comedy of the absurd “Punch-Drunk Love.” Sure, I’ve been able to tolerate some of the comedian’s efforts, most notable “Anger Management” and “Happy Gilmore,” without too much suffering. Yet, on the whole, I find the man and his oeuvre ghastly, the cinematic wreckage unleashed by pictures as gruesome as “Big Daddy,” “The Waterboy” and “Little Nicky” more than the average person should have to endure.

One big exception to this carnage is the 1998 Sandler/Drew Barrymore collaboration “The Wedding Singer.” Not really a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, it was still a pleasantly enchanting diversion filled with just the right balance of silliness, anger and romance. Even better, the two stars revealed near-perfect chemistry, both actors playing off the other so much better than anyone could have ever thought possible.

After watching the duo reunite in “50 First Dates” it is instantly clear that the chemistry displayed in that older film wasn’t a fluke. If anything, age has only been kind to the twosome in this regard. From the very first moment they lock eyes across a sparsely populated diner, it is immediately clear that a beauteous spark of rapturously effervescent spunkiness exists between them. In fact it is hard to think of two other modern-day actors who link up so deftly, I almost feel like I have to go back to the days of Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy to find their match.

Funny thing is, I never remember Tracy and Hepburn having to rely upon a vomit-spewing walrus to generate laughs. Nor a spectacularly unfunny sidekick played by an actor as singularly awful as Rob Schnieder. And, I seem to remember a certain wit and ingenuity behind their scripts, whereas all the best bits here seem pulled from other, much better, films like “Groundhog Day,” “From Here to Eternity,” “The Philadelphia Story,” “Memento” and even the pair’s own “The Wedding Singer.” This is a ponderous, unfunny movie that puts the two stars to sorry use, collapsing like pieces of lint underneath its own house of cards.

Sandler plays marine biologist and philandering playboy Henry Roth. Plying his stoically smug charms on the clueless female tourists touring his Hawaiian island home of Oahu, he’s a man content to drift through relationships. He doesn’t want to become too committed to any one woman as the sarcastic scientist plans to sail his ship The Sea Serpent to Alaska to do an in-depth study of walruses in their native habitat. Falling in love could jeopardize that dream and for Henry that just won’t do.

Things change, however, when he meets the perky and beautiful blonde Lucy Whitmore (Drew Barrymore) at a local café. He’s ensorcelled by her charms from the first moment he spies her making log cabins and native teepees out of a plate of steaming hot waffles, instantly sure this is the one girl for him. One problem: Lucy has no short-term memory due to a tragic car accident. For the past year, her father Marlin (Blake Clark) and brother Doug (Sean Astin) have pretended it is the last perfect day before her accident, feeling this thoroughly planned lie is better than having to daily break Lucy’s heart with the truth.

Poor Henry finds himself falling in love with the beguiling girl. Each day, he does everything he can to make her fall in love with him, introducing himself to her for the first time over and over and over again. Somehow, someway he is going to help Lucy regain at least parts of her memory so she’ll know just how completely he’s enraptured by her charms. Slowly but surely, Henry wins over Lucy’s family and friends in his seemingly hopeless quest, sure that an elusive second kiss is just around the corner.

I did not hate “50 First Dates.” In fact, there were times when I was nearly sure the movie was going to win me over. The stars really are perfect together, and there are some wonderful supporting turns by Clark, Astin and Dan Aykroyd (playing Lucy’s physician Dr. Keats) that more than make the grade. Even better, the movie has a wistful winsomeness that’s surprisingly bittersweet adding an acerbic edge to the movie’s more outlandish and slapstick-fueled ambitions.

Yet, the whole enterprise falls unremarkably flat, George Wing’s script having nothing of any value or interest to offer as it rolls towards its wooden and cloying conclusion. Even worse is Peter Segal’s nonexistent style of directing. After having worked with Sandler on “Anger Management” and being the man responsible for the bludgeoningly awful “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” it gets harder and harder to understand why this man still has a career. Sure, the movie’s he’s made have been successful, but that really can’t be due to him. All his movies seem to have directed themselves, Segal having no visual style or tonal bravado to make any of the pictures in his canon stand out from the crowd.

Worse, “50 First Dates” opens with what must be the most extraordinarily awful first fifteen minutes I’m sure I’ve ever seen. Quite honestly, I don’t know how I even made it past them, this opening barrage of idiotic bathroom humor and lame innuendo enough to make even the most devote Sandler groupie turn in their credentials. These opening moments are so painful, so dubiously constructed and thought out, it is a wonder the rest of the film is remotely palatable, let alone that they come ever-so close to winning the viewer over.

That they almost do is once again a testament to the power of Barrymore. No fan of either of her “Charlie’s Angels” films, I still consider myself an utterly devote disciple of the church of Drew. This lady is one of the few in Hollywood who can charm away almost all my animosity with single smile. In thin pieces of fluff like “Never Been Kissed” that’s more than enough to get one through while in better, well-constructed fare like “Ever After” that grin is a slice of heaven. Here that smile and grace is only enough to make me not hate the movie and while that’s nowhere near an endorsement, when movies are as poorly fabricated as this I’ll take all the silver lining I can get, and this bubbly blonde has silver lining down to an art.