Click

Review by Adam Weeks

Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) is having a tough time at fitting everything into his day. Between his kids Ben & Samantha, wife Donna (Kate Beckinsale) and his demanding boss Mr. Ammer (David Hasselhoff), his ladder climbing in the world of Architecture is slowly getting on top of him. 

After blowing up at his inability to control all of the gadgets in his life, he sets out one night in search of a Universal Remote Control, which leads him to the mysterious Morty (Christopher Walken), who offers him the latest and greatest in the line of devices, but with one catch – he can never return it. Sounds simple enough, but as he begins to discover that his new Remote actually effects everything in his life, from fast-forwarding through arguments, muting his wife’s best friend Janine (Jennifer Coolidge), skipping the boring parts of his life, and listening to commentary from James Earl Jones, Michael quickly realizes that he may be skipping through many of the big moments in his life.

Well, here’s me surprised. I’ve always been the kind of guy that sort of likes Adam Sandler – I really enjoyed The Wedding Singer (also Directed by Frank Coraci), Big Daddy, 50 First Dates & Happy Gilmore, but a lot of his other stuff like The Waterboy & Little Nicky just annoyed the hell out of me, and I’ve never been able to sit through them more than once. So when I watched Click, it seemed to be the kind of Sandler film that I liked, until the halfway point, when it actually changes pace from an out & out comedy of fart jokes, kids getting hit in the head with baseballs & dogs humping stuffed toys, to more of a sweet story then I’m used to seeing Sandler in, and dare I say it, even a bit of a tear-jerker (at least from the reaction of the audience I was watching it with anyway) – but I still really dug it.

As per usual, a lot of Sandler’s buddies from his prior films are back here. You get Henry Winkler, Sean Astin, Tim Herlihy, Rob Schneider – and the always welcome return of the O’Doyle family. As far as the main cast themselves go, Adam Sandler has been doing the goofy every guy thing for a long time now, so there’s no real heavy lifting involved for him, but I will say that he actually does a really good job with some of the more emotional scenes of the film, something I’m told he does wonderfully in Punch-Drunk Love – but I still haven’t caught that one. 

Likewise, Kate Beckinsale who is a long time favorite of mine does great as the under-pressure wife. She’s always a risk for a romantic pairing in my book, when it works well like with John Cusack in Serendipity, she can be fantastic, but for every good set up, there’s a Josh Hartnett / Ben Affleck / Scott Speedman pairing around the corner – but thankfully here, she slips in well with the goings on. Rounding out the cast of course are the great Christopher Walken & David Hasselhoff, who both seem to be playing themselves – not that that’s a bad thing.

It’s a shame, but I don’t think that Click will do a great deal of business at the box office. I think it will have a great opening weekend, but like the other current release The Break Up, what people are seeing in the trailers for the film is not actually the type of film that they will wind up seeing. That being said, I really enjoyed Click, and the fact that it surprised me as much as it did in terms of the tone of the film really turned it from another typical Happy Madison production into the league of Sandler’s better films like The Wedding Singer.

Definitely check it out if you get a chance, but I think that people are going to be pretty divided on this one.

4 out of 5

Click
Australian release: 22nd June, 2006
Cast: Adam Sandler, Christopher Walken, Kate Beckinsale, David Hasselhoff, Sean Astin
Director: Frank Coraci
Website: Click here.