To say Adam Sandler’s new movie isn’t as bad as his last is like saying your typical dental filling isn’t as bad as a root canal. Neither will kill you, and with today’s anesthesia, they may not hurt that much. But there’s no way you want to be in that reclining chair, with sharp metal objects shoved in your mouth.

So why do we keep renting those comfy, stadium-seating cinema chairs and letting Sandler shovel something else down our throats?

“That’s My Boy” is hardly Sandler’s worst, and next to last year’s abysmal “Jack and Jill,” his latest one looks almost inspired. Yet this father-son story is just more of the same gross, lazy comedy that Sandler’s been doing for years, the repetitiveness evident in his generally declining box-office receipts.