Review: Click
Workaholic Adam Sandler meets
weirdo scientist Christopher Walken who gives him a ‘universal remote’, a
magical device that can seemingly do anything, and certainly allows its user to
juggle both work and family commitments. Sandler figures he can fast-forward
through a lot of stuff (arguments, and hell, even sex) to focus on work
commitments (Everyone’s favourite punchline, David Hasselhoff is Sandler’s
tyrannical boss) in order to get a promotion that gives him more personal
freedom and time with his family. Unfortunately, the remote ‘learns’ Sandler’s
habits, and soon Sandler is skipping whole sections of his life, leading to
domestic unhappiness. Well, that’s what you get for fast-forwarding sex with
hottie wife Kate Beckinsale. I mean, is this guy nuts or what? I’d be playing
that in slow-mo, dude! Frequent replays! TiVo it and watch it over and over! Henry
Winkler plays Sandler’s loving father, Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson herself) is
his mother, Jennifer Coolidge plays the same bimbo she always does (here
playing Beckinsale’s dopey friend), “SNL” comedienne Rachel Dratch plays
a gender-confused secretary (not really a stretch, is it?), our own Sophie Monk
plays a...bimbo (she’s good at it, and a good sport), and Sean Astin plays a
Speedo-sporting (you’ve been warned!) potential lunch-cutter, if you catch my
drift.
Although it starts out as horribly
as the trailer made it look, this 2006 Frank Coraci (“The Wedding Singer”,
which is one of Sandler’s best, and “The Waterboy”, which is not) flick
with “It’s a Wonderful Life” similarities, is a bit funnier and a tad
more thoughtful than I anticipated. It’s certainly a clever Capra update in
theory, and there are some interesting ideas here and there (Sandler’s life has
an audio commentary by James Earl Jones, he can change the colour and contrast
like on a TV, and don’t even ask what the ‘making of...’ featurette is, you
don’t want to know!), but the humour is too often predictable and juvenile, and
when the film goes for dramatics towards the end, it falls flat.
I don’t blame the actors too much
here. Sandler has proven he can play it straight on occasion and Winkler
certainly can, but this film heads into some pretty dark territory that it
can’t properly address under the constraints of an Adam Sandler vehicle. Also, Coraci
clearly isn’t a strong enough director to guide his actors and make the
serious, emotional stuff work. However, it would perhaps have been a better
film if helmed by a stronger director (or an inventive writer like Charlie
Kaufman) and perhaps starring someone like Jim Carrey, who might have done a
little better than Sandler in the dramatic department (and might have had more
chemistry with Beckinsale than Sandler does, though I’m only guessing).
Same old story for Sandler: Aome
of it works, a lot of it doesn’t. And most painfully of all, it’s nearly two
hours long! What’s up with that? This should’ve been 95 minutes at most.
Rating: C+
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