Click: Movie, DVD, Blu-ray disc DVD Review (2006)

(Originally published June 23, 2006)

For some moviegoers, the idea behind the new Adam Sandler movie, "Click," will present an irrisistible fantasy. What if a remote control could alter the real-life events unfolding around you?

Just for fun, let's consider what such a control could have prevented during a recent screening of the movie.

Conceivably, with a press of a button, you could pause life long enough to lower theater concessions to a reasonable level. No longer would a bottle of water cost $3.25--it would be a fraction of that and you wouldn't feel suckerpunched when you walked away.

You also could point the control at the increasing number of insular people who talk on cell phones during movies, usually in an effort to draw attention to themselves. No longer would you need to suffer through an inane conversation of, say, how "Jessica screwed me over" while you tried to focus on the movie. You'd only need to point the control at the offender glowing head and--click!--they'd be deleted.

As fun as it is to think about how far you could take such a premise, the reality is that "Click" doesn't take it very far. It's yet another Sandler movie that should have been sent to bed without a budget since it was, after all, sent to the studio without a script.

The film stars Sandler as Mike Newman, a workaholic everyman (we'll use that term lightly) who doesn't have much time for his wife, Donna (Kate Beckinsale), their two unflaggingly cute children (Joseph Castanon and Tatum McCann), or their sexually rambunctious dog. Mike is an archiect driven to work long hours thanks to his demanding boss, played by a preening David Hasselhoff.

But when Mike happens into Bed, Bath & Beyond one night to find a universal remote control to simplify his life, what he finds instead is a wacky inventor who changes his life. The man's name is Morty (Christopher Walken, the best part of the show), he has created a dandy of a remote called a "MeVo," and Mike quickly buys into it. After all, among other things, the device has the power to allow him to fast forward through any sort of unpleasantness, such as arguments with his wife, his dog's penchant for humping stuffed animals, difficult dinner parties with the folks. He can slow down time to leer at women joggers, or stop time to do unthinkable, gaseous things to his boss.

Mostly, though, Mike flies through the years, missing the trials of life and thus missing what apparently makes life so worthwhile--the idea that it can become nauseastingly sentimental and bitter sweet, as it does here.

The idea behind "Click" isn't new--we've seen a version of it before in "Bruce Almighty," in which Jim Carrey played God to the point that he wish he hadn't meddled at all, which is what becomes of Mike. There's a good reason for the coincidence--"Click" was written by the same writers, Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe. We've also seen a good deal of "Click" in other movies, "It's a Wonderful Life," "A Christmas Carol" and "Back to the Future" chief among them.

This pilfering from the Hollywood backlot is hardly new for Sandler, who embraced it fully in his 2005 remake of "The Longest Yard," nor is the idea that he has mined yet another film where raunch eventually is toppled by sap. With the jokes as predictable as they are unremarkable, "Click" ultimately should have turned its remote on itself, pressed rewind, and allowed us to revisit Sandler's best film, "Punch Drunk Love."

Grade: C-