Critic's Grade: B-

There have been various instances where people have been able to control their universe at will, only in the movies and on T.V. of course. One of my personal favorites was The Twilight Zone episode in which a man comes into posession with a watch that can stop time and freeze everyone and everything around him. Click has quite a simliar premise except freezing, or "pausing", time is not the only fun feature.

I've had an interesting history with Adam Sandler films, my siblings love them, my Dad doesn't mind them, and my Mom hates them. For me, it depends how they are done. I know what kind of comedian Adam Sandler is and his humor involves a lot of crude minded jokes and yelling curse words. Films such as Big Daddy (one summer I remember watching it fourteen times on my uncle's Direct TV), had a much lighter hearted side and were actually both entertaining and enjoyable. Other films such as Little Nicky, take the most twisted crude humor and language imaginable and throw them in with a deranged plot. Those however, are not so enjoyable? Click was in a sense, in between the two techniques.

In Frank Coraci's (also director of the Adam Sandler hit, The Waterboy) Click, Mike Newman (Adam Sandler) is an overworked architect father, whose life is totally absent from that of his two children, Ben (Joseph Castanon) and Samantha (Tatum McCann). His secretary, Alice (SNL's Rachel Dratch) is constantly asking to go to the bathroom and his boss (David Hasselehoff) is pressuring him to do even more work. Mike's wife, Donna (Kate Beckinsale) is starting to grow tired of her husband's excuses and grows dissapointed in him more and more as breaks more promises to his young children. Whenever he gets home from a long day of work he wants to shut his parents (Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner), his sister in law (Jennifer Coolidge), his wife, and his children out of his life to so he can just sit down, eat twinkies and watch T.V. Except he doesn't know which remote does what.

Desperate for a universal remote control, he rushes out to the nearest open deparment store, Bed, Bath, and Beyond. The store has everthing anyone could want except for a remote. He wanders into the beyond section (which I got a kick out of and so will you fans of Family Guy) and meets a mad scientist looking employee named Morty (Christopher Walken, what hasn't he been in?). Mike tells Morty of his issues and surprisingly, Morty is able to give him a brand new remote control for free. As strange events events begin to unwind from the press of the buttons, Morty explains that he wanted a universal remote control, so he gave him one that controls his universe.

The early humor in the film is unwanted, Sandler is running screaming at kids who are using firecrackers that are bothering other families, his kids are running around the house taking after him which consists of mostly language and vulgar sayings. Some of the more clever humor revolves around the remote. He pauses time and punches his boss in the face, he changes the contrast to give himself a better looking tan after pretending to be The Hulk after turning himself green. The writing for Beckinsale's character I thought was quite weak. Newman does whatever he wants and says whatever he wants and she makes no attempt to do anything at all.

Writers Steve Koren and Mike O'Keefe, both involved in the cleverly written, Bruce Almighty, do something not many other writers have done with a Sandler film. They gave it some feeling. At some point in the film, after fast-forwarding for quite a long period of time, the family loses the dog and Sandler begins to weep. After suffering a heart attack at his son's (when he's in his twenties) wedding, he's in the hospital, he learns his son has decided to cancel his honeymoon to work. Sandler's character truly does not want his son to make the same mistakes he did. This high point of the film, gives it the feeling of It's A Wondeful Life. Some almost tearjerking moments. This is also quite an achievment for Sandler's acting ability.

Director Frank Coraci seems to know what kind of Sandler films he wants to make. Funny in both good and bad ways, but with an overall meaning that lets the audience decipher whether the film has substance or not. The way I looked at it was, it had it's high and low points of humor, had substance, but could have easily had much more. One small step for Coraci's direction, one giant leap for an Adam Sandler film.

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