Capra must be spinning in his grave by now!

Rating: 4/10 (20 November 2006)

With "Click" Adam Sandler taints the great name of classic film director Frank Capra once again. Sandler had previously done havoc upon the 1936 screwball comedy "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" with his 2002 release "Mr. Deeds", and now he's set his sights on that perennial Christmas favorite and all-around stellar 1946 film "It's a Wonderful Life".
Although Sandler portrays sad saps with aplomb, he hardly presents the Everyman in the fashion of a Gary Cooper or a James Stewart. His three degrees of facial changes and seven variations of gesticulating visible in this film, and much of his repertoire, prove that his stand-out work in "Punch-Drunk Love" was a false alarm, and solely due to fine writing.
"Click" tells the all too familiar story of a workaholic dad who has become so wrapped up in his work that he has no time for his home life. This set-up is so prevalent that the first fifteen minutes are a major challenge to wade through. So Dad wishes for a cure-all to drop down from the heavens. Wasn't this storyline beaten to death ten years ago with "Multiplicity"? Well, our hero soon finds himself in the Beyond Section of a Bed, Bath, & Beyond looking straight in the face of the solution to his woes.
It comes as no surprise that "Click" was written by the scribes behind "Bruce Almighty", when the answer comes in the form of a universal remote control that literally controls the universe. It was sort of fun watching traffic separate in "Bruce" and it's sort of neat to see our character's life on pause in this flick, but how many times do we see the same basic thing before the remote becomes the most interesting character in the film? How long before the movie's structure becomes little more than two hours of flipping channels?
"Click" is sort of cute, and sort of clever, but it's getting tiresome to watch Adam Sandler continue to age within the midst of an endless slew of potty jokes and other juvenile humor, while the music cues of his films may suggest a more sentimental moment. When will audiences realize his irrelevance?
Nonetheless, in amongst the rubble that becomes of the good intentions behind "Click" are standout moments by the always dependable Christopher Walken, in a role one might suspect is merely Walken before his morning coffee, and Julie Kavner, taking some time from "The Simpsons", brings the goods with a limited but charming performance as the protagonist's mother.
These are the exceptions, though. Mostly our cardboard characters are more like the wife Kate Beckinsale plays. Didn't the "Underworld" series bring her beyond this crap yet?
C'Mon, change the channel.