Click: クリック: シネマコンプレックス[シネコン]: CineMa Complex[CineCom] @ シネコム

/ 2006-06-23 The closest Adam Sandler has come to a great film to this point in his career is "50 First Dates." As far as I was concerned get rid of Rob Schneider as Ula and cut the vomiting Walrus and you would have a five star movie. "Click" is in the same mold in that it combines Sandler's romantic side with a unusual situation and still insists on adding raunchy humor (I suppose there could be worse things than your dog trying to have sex with a giant stuffed duck, but let us not go there). Consequently, "Click" is not an improvement on "50 First Dates," but I do not think that it constitutes a step backwards, which would be welcomed news.

Sandler plays Michael Newman, who has married beyond his reach the gorgeous Donna (Kate Beckinsale), and has two young kids who love him, his son Ben (Joseph Castanon) and his daughter (Tatum McCann), despite the fact that he is so busy trying to make partner at the architecture firm where he works that he is ignoring his family more and more each day. Every time he makes a promise to his family, he feels forced bo break it to satisfy John Ammer (David Hasselhoff) at work. Things are getting so bad that Michael suddenly decides that what he needs ia a universal remote, just like the O'Doyle's next door, so that at least he can turn on his TV instead of the overhead fan. So he heads off into the night and since Bed, Bath and Beyond is the only store opens, goes in to find his universal remote. What he finds instead in the Beyond part of the store is Morty (Christopher Walken), who indeed has a universal remote, and not just your ordinary universal remote, as I assume everybody knows from the previews.

I must say up front that I am pretty sure I could listen to Christopher Walken say anything, up to an including the instructions for using a universal remote or any other form of technology and be thoroughly entertained. I would also add that Morty is absolutely right about Donna's body. Anyway, with his amazing universal remote Michael quickly learns that he can use it to control his world and click away his problems, from muting his dog, fast-forwarding through fights with his wife, and pausing his boss so that he can slap the guy silly (although I think close-captioning would have been funnier for the scene with the Japanese businessmen at the restaurant). Then Michael discovers the catch.

It is not, as the trailer would lead you to believe, that the remote breaks. But rather, as Morty explains, that it functions like Tivo in that it pays attention to what he is doing with the remote and automatically does it again. So if you decide to fast-forward through an illness or foreplay with your wife, then that becomes the way it will be for the rest of your life. This is a fairly interesting idea given the premise of the film, and the only real flaw in it is that once you establish Michael is on "auto pilot" during the chapters of his life that are skipped, then I do not see how he could be so successful at his business given that he has to use the remote to save the bacon with the Japanese firm. But that is just because I pay attention to the rules of the game and like to take them to their logical extensions.

Sandler has gathered familiar faces for this film, with Henry Winkler playing Michael's father, Sean Astin as Ben's swim coach, and even a nice cameo by Schneider, whose understate performance encouraged my hopes for this film. Perhaps the biggest surprise here is that the raunchy humor got me to laugh out loud several times, even if a grown man striking back at the Eddie Haskell-wannabee who lives next door would be wrong, very wrong indeed (but still funny). However, my wife would like me to state in no uncertain terms that what I was laughing at was clearly guy humor, and I am pretty sure she rolled her eyes and shook her head more often than she joined in on the laughing (it was hard to tell, the theater was dark and I was trying to watch the movie).

Ultimately, the problem with the movie is the end, when Michael gets his second chance. That is because the screenplay by Steve Koren and Mark O'Keefe (the team who did "Bruce Almighty") invests so much in the big epiphany and final grace note at the end of the third act that they apparently have nothing much to come up with for the epilogue where we are assured Michael and his family will live happily ever after. "50 First Dates" had a great final payoff scene, and you can go all the way back to "It's a Wonderful Life" to see how well you can milk the return from Hell to the real world. Granted, you will not top the end of the Hell sequence, but then you are not supposed to. Still, there has to be a better payoff for what comes between that point and the start of the credits. I am still rounding up on this one, but I should have been in a position to round down. Final Note: Nice touch with getting Dolores O'Riordan from the Cranberries to show up to sing "Linger" live at the wedding.