Click

2006, US, directed by Frank Coraci

Another of Adam Sandler's attempts to move beyond the infantile comedies of his early career, Click squanders an intriguing concept by failing to decide between drama, sentiment and crass laughs. Sandler plays a workaholic father who acquires a remote control that allows him to control his entire world, an intriguing philosophical dilemma which the film does try to grapple with, but which is constantly undercut by crude humour (not to mention the fact that it's hard to feel all that sorry for a character who uses the device to behave like a bully even at moments when he's supposedly absorbing the Life Lessons that the remote confronts him with). Sandler isn't a dislikeable performer - he was especially good in The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates with Drew Barrymore as a foil, while Spanglish wasted a good outing - but the supporting characters are given almost nothing interesting to do, and his own familiar shtick is over-extended without the presence of some of his familiar cast-mates. Notwithstanding the inconsistent tone, director Frank Coraci's work is much more polished here than in The Wedding Singer, no doubt partly the result of a bigger budget, though it's still hard to figure out why a film like this costs $75 million or so to get to the screen.