Click (2006)

Credits / Details

60%
Overall Rating

Ranked #530
...out of 20,702 movies

Genres: Comedy Fantasy Comedy

Connections: Click

A workaholic architect finds a universal remote that allows him to fast-forward and rewind to different parts of his life. Complications arise when the remote starts to overrule his choices. --IMDb

Review by Chad
Added: November 16, 2006

Adam Sandler sure does get a lot of hate for his films, but personally, I enjoy his work. Sure, they're not movie-of-the-year candidates and none of them will top the funniest movies of all time list, but they usually tend to deliver what they promise - that being ninety minutes of laughs, with the occasional serious side of Sandler poking through. I actually had no interest in seeing this one, but since it was "watch a movie with the woman of the house" day, I figured that she could have picked out something much worse. Surprisingly, I enjoyed this one just as much as she did.

For those of you who somehow missed the barrage of advertisements for the film, the storyline focuses on Michael (Adam Sandler) and Donna Newman (Kate Beckinsale), a couple whose marriage is under a bit of stress thanks to Michael being a workaholic. One night, after getting fed up with never being able to find the appropriate remote control to turn on the television, he heads out to Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick up one of those "new" universal remotes. After spending some time prowling the aisles, he bumps into an eccentric man who identifies himself as Morty (Christopher Walken). Morty seems to have a little bit of everything tucked away in the warehouse-sized room located in the back of the store, and it just so happens that he has the sort of remote that Michael is looking for. However, this particular remote doesn't just work with TV's and other household appliances; no, this one can control time as well, allowing Michael to fast-forward through arguments and traffic jams while also allowing him to rewind his life to revisit any particular moment that he has experienced. Interesting, to say the least, but is this remote something that you'd really want after you find out the details of it?

The first half of the movie contains everything you'd expect from a Sandler flick: fart, sex, and penis jokes mixed together with some sort of gimmicky storyline that allows said fart, sex, and penis jokes to be executed in new ways (for example, watch the scene where he pauses time so that he can climb aboard the desk of his boss (played by David Hasselhoff) and let out a twenty-second fart directly on his face). However, once things get going, the film actually turns into a drama of sorts, exploring the relationship between husband and wife while also showing that sometimes, it's important to put family first. You'll see the end revelation coming long before it hits the screen, of course, but it was a surprise to see Sandler stray into this territory and stay there for so long.

The acting abilities put forth by Sandler were also quite shocking. He plays the same basic role that he's always played during the first half of the movie by focusing on pulling some laughs from the audience and focusing on little else, but as the movie progresses, we get to see that he can actually act. There's a few tear-jerker scenes sprinkled throughout the running time, and much to my surprise, Sandler was able to effectively pull these scenes off. Kate Beckinsale also turns in a solid performance, but the real co-star to Sandler is Hasselhoff. One would think that the former Knight Rider is past his glory days aside from small cameo roles, but he was actually quite good (and hilarious) in his role here.

Honestly, the only fault that I had with the film is that it started to drag in the small span of time between the comedy and the drama. This only lasted for about fifteen minutes, but during this time, I seriously contemplated hitting the fast-forward button due to the lack of direction behind the storyline. By this point, it's well established what the remote can do and how the relationship between husband and wife is working (or not working), but we get the "pleasure" of rehashing all of these facts during the transition. I realize that you can't immediately jump from one genre to the next in just one cut-scene, but some work on said transition would have helped things greatly.

Click has its faults and it certainly isn't anything groundbreaking in the world of cinema, but it was much more enjoyable than I would have expected. Give it a rental - you could certainly do much worse with the recent comedy releases. 7/10.

#1: Tristan - added November 16, 2006 at 10:11pm
This movie shocked the shit out of me. I was expecting another lame Sandler movie, like The Longest Yard, but this movie was actually very good. There were a few spots where I almost shed a tear, which I was not expecting at all.
9/10

#2: BuryMeAlive - added March 8, 2008 at 6:52pm
Expected a fun comedy (the trailers and all promotes it as one) but what I got was a tale of sentimental nonsense.