Click

Scraping the tearjerking barrel confession: I have a soft spot for the low-comic high jinks of Adam Sandler, including Happy Gilmore and even the unfairly maligned Waterboy. But Sandler has a sappy side that makes me puke. I damn near choked on Click. It ts with the business-as-usual jokes. Sandler plays Michael Newman, a workaholic architect who slaves for his boss (David Hasselhoff) and neglects his hottie wife (Kate Beckinsale), two cute kids and a dog who plays humpity-pumpity with a stuffed duck. One day, while shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond one of the films many brand plugs Michael meets Morty (Christopher Walken channeling Christopher Lloyd), a mad scientist who gifts him with a universal remote that not only controls his TV but allows him to travel back and forth and even freeze-frame his life. Sex and excrement sight gags abound in typical Sandler fashion, though the scene in which Michael puts his boss on pause, slaps him hard and then farts in his face would have to mature a few years to be called juvenile. Its when the script, by Steve Koren and Mark OKeefe, tries to grow a heart that disaster strikes. Director Frank Coraci indulges his in the worst sentimental excess. Its as if the filmmakers had decided to force-blend Scrooge with Its a Wonderful Life to preach the most treacly message ever about family values. Michael fast-forwards thirty years to find himself divorced, lonely, morbidly obese (in a fat suit that looks borrowed from Mike Myers Fat Bastard), playing with flaps of belly skin after liposuction, battling cancer and a massive heart attack in the pouring rain, yet. In the films sap-sucking nadir, he revisits the last time he saw his father (Henry Winkler sagging under aging latex), ignoring the old man to take care of business. Now he plays back his fathers last words over and over: I love you, son. Click. I love you, son. Click. I love you, son. Click. Can no one save the talented Sandler from himself? I hate this movie. Click. I hate this movie. Click. I hate this movie. Click.