Release Date: June 23, 2006

Every film critic has a set of rules they follow when they evaluate a movie. Some are very strict, and some only come into play in certain instances. For example, I once read about a critic who would use how many times he checked his watch during a screening as a gauge for how well paced the particular film was. Some critics always look at certain aspects of films, and some are a little easier on certain actors and actresses.

Like other critics, I also have a set of rules I follow. And some of my rules are directly related to specific actors. For example, any film that stars Christopher Walken is instantly granted an extra one star on the five-star scale. I am just that big a fan of his work. 2005’s Wedding Crashers would have probably been a four-star film in my eyes had it not been for the 15 minutes of screen time where Walken played Secretary Cleary. For me, that is just how it is.

Another rule I have is that most films that include David Hasselhoff are instantly deducted one star on the five-star scale. What does that mean for the recent release Click, starring Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale alongside the aforementioned Walken and Hasselhoff? Well, it means that Christopher Walken won’t be saving this one from ending up on my short list of bad movies for 2006. And when I say bad, I mean painful to experience.

I believe every huge actor is entitled their vanity project; to do a film just because they can. Tom Cruise has done this many times, citing Mission Impossible III as a perfect example. With no real reason but the $100 million dollar paycheck and an opportunity to spread the word of Scientology during the publicity route, he made the film. It didn’t matter if it was good or bad, people were going to see it.

The same is now true with Adam Sandler and Click. No matter how bad the movie is, it will still draw a decent crowd the first weekend, solely due to the fact that it stars Mr. Sandler. And unfortunately, that is all this film has going for it.

In Click, Sandler plays Michael Newman, an up and coming architect whose work has begun to interfere with his cookie-cutter version of a family, no thanks to his lazy, unappreciative boss played by David Hasselhoff. His beautiful wife, played by Kate Beckinsale, and his two young children are beginning to notice he is becoming more and more distant from them and they are not very happy about it.

Then, one night, after becoming extremely frustrated with not being able to turn on his own television (due to the three remotes needed for the task), Michael travels to Bed, Bath, and Beyond in search of a universal remote that will solve his woes. He makes his way through the store and eventually comes to a door marked “Beyond.” Behind the door, he meets Morty, played by Walken, who shares with him the device that will change his life forever — a remote control that can control the world around him.