Movie Review: Click

Based around a potentially ingenious high concept, Click offers sporadic amounts of funny; liberal doses of mean spirit; a sickly sweet aftertaste and more than passing resemblance to A Christmas Carol. Marketed as a straight-up comedy, this is anything but. It has a few laugh out loud moments, but the gimmick runs its course early making the film seem unnaturally stretched out with filler.

Adam Sandler stars as Michael Newman, an architect who seems to be more in love with his work than with his family. He works, and he works, and he works some more, constantly putting off spending time with his wife and kids, despite their desperation for his attention. During one incident involving (what else?) a multitude of remote controls, Michael makes a late night trip to simplify his life by acquiring a remote control. As fate would have it, he only finds Bed, Bath, and Beyond open. This leads him past the vast aisles for Bed and Bath until he discovers the Beyond down a long dark hallway. At the end of the hall he meets Morty, played with wit by Christopher Walken, who takes him to the way beyond...where he has a truly universal remote.

The "funny" is exhibited as Michael discovers the variety of ways he can employ the universal functions. He finds he can lower his dog's bark, play with his own hues, mute or dub uninteresting conversations, and fast forward through fights with the wife. We also witness something of a feud between him and his neighbors, which has a decidedly mean-spirited bend to it. That is something that I found rather off-putting. A lot of the jokes and such were very mean and cruel and at times just sucked the funny right out of them. When the sweet-natured emotional part of the film came, it was almost a case of too little too late.

Newman finds that his life is passing him by at an ever quickening pace, thanks to the remote control programming itself to his desires. It is interesting to note that his life may have been headed in that direction even without the remote. How often do we find ourselves, in reality, tuning out what we don't want to hear? Michael Newman's life could be any number of us. Despite Michael's claims otherwise, this is the path down which he was already heading, going into auto-pilot through the difficult times.

Article Author: Chris Beaumont

Christopher Beaumont spends much of his time writing about music and movies when he isn't indulging in them. He is always ready to talk about his favorite form of entertainment and offer up recommendations. Follow: Twitter and Tumblr. Visit: Critical Outcast. …

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