Click

Click (Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Walken, David Hasselhoff, Henry Winkler, Julie Kavner) — I laughed; I cried.  And I didn’t expect to do much of either.  Sandler has made a fortune playing the lovable family man put in odd situations that he can play straight and funny at the same time.  He shines here, first as a career-obsessed architect with his eye on a partnership and then as a desperate husband/father urgently trying to recapture the life he missed searching for his dream.  I loved the concept the studio “green-lighted”: Guy goes into Bed, Bath and Beyond since nothing else was open looking for a “universal remote” to help make life easier so he doesn’t mess up the TV, ceiling fan, remote control toys, and the TV set.  He follows the signs to “BEYOND” and runs into Chris Walken, who is always the best actor in any movie he appears.  At first, it all works well.  But when it goes south, it goes deep south.  The remote learns from how  the user utilizes it.  And therein lays Sandler’s problem.  Leave it to a gorgeous, too-skinny Beckinsale (they never try to explain her British accent) and absolutely great performances from Winkler and Kavner as Sandler’s parents to keep the movie paced and you end up with a movie not unlike its writers’ prior effort, Bruce Almighty.  The only warning I’ll offer is: if you want this to be all laughs, you’re likely not to enjoy it.  And only one criticism: it tries to do too much.  It doesn’t have to stoop to all the gross parts and it is about 15 minutes too long.  But it’s well worth a watch and to heed the cautionary lesson.