Movie Review: "Click"

"Click" stars Adam Sandler as an architect who is angling for a huge promotion to partner within his architectural firm. (His boss is played by David Hasselhoff.) In the movie, Sandler never has time for his family, instead needing to work on important projects to get ahead, to give his family the life he always dreamed of as a child.

So one day, he goes to Bed Bath and Beyond, looking for a universal remote control, but he falls asleep on one of the sample beds. When he wakes up, he sees a doorway that says "Beyond." Walking through the door, he goes into the workshop of Morty (Christopher Walken). Morty gives him a state of the art universal remote control, so new it doesn't even have a barcode yet. Morty offers him this remote control for free, but Sandler is suspicious. However, eventually he takes it, assuming that it will run all of his electronics.

He returns home and starts to get some work done. The dog starts barking and he picks up the remote and presses the volume control. Lo and behold, the dog's volume goes down, and then up when he presses the opposite button.

Days pass, and he is able to fast forward to many unpleasant or "annoying" chores. Every time, he chooses work over family.

Eventually the remote control fast-forwards him one year, until he received his promotion. He's excited at first, but wonders what he missed. Then, without his prompting, the remote control auto fast forwards him another few years, when he receives a promotion to CEO, then six years, then to the end of his life. Hardly without realizing what has happened, he is on his deathbed, finally understanding at the end, that family is more important than work.

Is he given a second chance to make things right? You should rent the movie and find out.

In some ways, this movie was a lot like "Family Man," with Nicolas Cage and Tea Leoni. In that movie, Nicolas Cage's character wonders what it would have been like if he had chosen to have a family instead of drowning himself in work.

I enjoyed "Click," and for a somewhat sentimental Saturday night, you might enjoy this movie also. Thankfully, Sandler doesn't do a lot of the cheesy schtick he is known for. In fact, Kate Beckinsale (his wife in the movie) and Christopher Walken outshine him. I am not a Sandler fan, but I did like this movie.