When did the comedy guys decide we needed or cared about storyline? When did they decide sap was better than making us laugh? And finally, is Adam Sandler the new Mike Myers (i.e. about to be put out to pasture)? For all of these questions and more we’ve got to board the review-o-train and brutalize this vicious and horrible effort at filmmaking. It was nasty, nasty stuff. Put your hazmat suit on.
Coming off of the remake of The Longest Yard I was praying that Sandler wouldn’t confirm my fears here, namely that he’s lost all edge and has just decided to cash checks. Well, after seeing this, fears confirmed, he’s about as edgy as Jello. Click is about Sandler stumbling across a remote control which can pause time, speed it up, rewind, change colors, invoke a commentary, and… oh c’mon, you’ve seen the trailers and by now you should get the joke. Ha ha, he slowed it down to look at boobies. This is pretty much the tone of the whole movie. For instance, Christopher Walken calls it a “universal remote,” because it really means he controls the universe with the remote. That joke, like most of the others, is telegraphed so hard you’ll see them coming from the popcorn line. What you won’t see coming is the true angle of this film once it has a chance to fully ripen, a blatant and clumsy pull at your heart strings. It’s not a comedy, it’s a crapedy. Big difference there.
The truly crazy thing is how much Click borrows from Shaggy Dog (which they should’ve called Death Spiral). In both films the dad is off working hard to give his kids a shot at a life he never had, but somehow he loses sight of the fact that THE FAMILY is the most important thing, not the money or the job. Luckily some ridiculous effect helps them put things in perspective (for Allen it’s becoming a dog, for Sandler it’s using a remote). Sandler and Tim Allen, working that same non-funny sap storyline. I never thought I’d see the day.
Click feels a lot like is Bruce Almighty even though it’s not one tenth as good, but it could be because the same guys that wrote Bruce wrote this crap. Then again, it might be because Carrey is a better actor than Sandler or because we’ve already seen the “effects trick” done so many times. For my part I hate when Sandler tries the “anger as comedy” shtick because, while he did it so effectively in a film like Happy Gilmore, here it comes off as cutesy and unfunny. I think Sandler was at the top of his game when he was actually using anger AS anger, such as in the movie Punch Drunk Love, but sadly it looks like he won’t be going back to real projects anytime soon. I guess we’re not owed more than one comedy to drama actor transition a generation.
You shouldn’t see Click unless you love the obvious lay-up style of joke with a nice long boring easily guessed plotline to go along with your night out. I will admit there were people laughing at the screening I was at, but this happens in every comedy, good or bad, because in general people aren’t very smart. I’m giving Click a D- (and not an F) because it had a few moments that made me chuckle. Now if only I could have skipped around to those moments right off the bat and been done in 45 seconds…
