Click (2006)
- Click It Off -
¶ (Out of 4), 98 Minutes, PG-13
Click is dreadful. It’s the
epitome of a bad summer movie. It
doesn’t work on so many levels that I don’t know where to begin. I guess I’ll just say what every other critic
who’s seen Click has probably said in
some way or another: watching what happens when Adam Sandler
gets a universal remote is so painful that it’ll make you wish you had your own
universal remote so you could hastily fast-forward through this drek and get back to your life outside the movie theater
ASAP. And: Click is a flick that just doesn’t “Click.” The previous two sentences are corny and punny and perhaps made you cringe. But you don’t the meaning of the word
“cringe” until you watch this movie.
Click centers on workaholic architect,
husband, and father Michael Newman (Adam Sandler). Newman gets tired of not being able to tell
the difference between the remote controls for the ceiling fan, the garage door,
and the TV, so he decides to go out and buy a “universal remote” for the
TV. He stops at “Bad
I’m not an Adam Sandler fan. I
remember watching Billy Madison during a school field trip
on the bus ride home and laughing with my friends literally for hours at some
of the scenes (particularly the one where Sandler
throws his sandwich at the bus driver).
And Happy Gilmore with
the butt-kickin’ Bob Barker was like “THE” movie at
my high school. But most of the Sandler movies I’ve seen have been really stupid,
repetitive, and not too funny. Add Click to the top of that list.
What’s more
unbelievable? That Adam Sandler is a workaholic?
That the field Adam Sandler is a workaholic in
is architecture? That he’s married? That the woman he married is the (“rockin’ hot bodied”) Kate Beckinsale? Or that he’s a father who deeply cares about
his children? All five of the afore mentioned scenarios are about as believable as Shaquille O’Neal being a midget.
Sandler’s nearly 40 years old, but he’s a made a career out
of not growing up. He tried to venture
out with more serious movies like Punch-Drunk
Love and Spanglish, but both were
financial failures. So Sandler, with 50
First Dates and now Click is back to pleasing his core fans
and doing his thing. Maybe this will
delight neo-Sandler fans, but it was absolutely
abysmal to me. In Click Sandler just comes across as a kid,
a jerk, and a (little) prick, and he still can’t act worth a didly. His character
is neither likeable nor believable. For
that matter, Sandler, the writing, and the whole
movie are way too juvenile for anything to be convincing or of substance.
I did find 3
redeeming qualities from the movie, however.
1. Some parts are just so unabashedly stupid you can’t help but chuckle (as you roll your eyes) like of course, a big fart
scene with Newman’s boss, David Hasselhoff. 2. Christopher Walken’s usual oddball, “out there” character. Walken makes the
character work, but can’t save his character from a ridiculous “deadening” near
the end. And 3. Kate Beckinsale,
a beautiful lady whose presence and skintight black leather outfit made
Underworld 2 watchable. She’s pretty here too even if performance
isn’t inundating and her being Adam Sandler’s wife is
about as believable as O.J. really being innocent.
Ultimately, the
sad thing is that there’s a really cool idea here that somebody (who’s
talented) could do something with. It’s
such an awesome concept; having a remote control that operates your life like a
DVD, enabling you to pause and fast forward events and also to rewind and look
back at your fondest memories. There are
so many neat things and intriguing ideas you could play with using the
concept. Instead, Click settles for Sandler’s usual and
interminable dog humping, little penis, fart and fat jokes.
Click isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen
all year (When A Stranger Calls receives that honor) but
it’s close. It’s a gargantuan
disappointment. It aspires to be a
modernized Frank Capra classic like Mr.
Deeds Goes to Town or Mr. Smith Goes to
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Review by G. Roger Priddy (6-24-06)
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