Seen it all before

Rating: 4/10 (2 June 2020)

The first thing that stood out was during the opening credits this film claimed to be a 'Happy Madison Original'. Honestly, no, it really wasn't an original. In fact, this film reminded me a lot of the Jim Carry movie Bruce Almighty. Come to think of it, there seems to be something similar between Jim Carry and Adam Sandler which sort of made me realise that this movie had very little difference between the two. Okay, as comedians they pretty much have their own style, and Carey certainly does seem to have a lot more diversity in his skills than does Sandler, but I guess since both of them have a sort of uniqueness about them, and that they are able to carry their own movies, is probably why I didn't consider this film to be all that original.
So, the film has Sandler as this high flying architect that is climbing the corporate ladder, but also is having a lot of difficulty juggling his aspirations for work with his family life. He is then given an opportunity to have a bit of a helper in the form of a universal remote control that allows him to have greater influence over the world. However, as one can expect, with great power comes great responsibility, and while at first it seems that this device gives him an edge, this edge ends ups being a rather nasty blade that pretty much ends up ruining his life.
Yeah, as I suggested, there is pretty much nothing original about this film, and in fact while the idea of a universal remote control for your life might be new, the concept of gaining some extraordinary power to make your life easier, only to discover that with the benefits comes some rather nasty consequences, isn't really all that new. As such, I have to say that I found this film to actually be rather boring.
The other thing that annoyed me about the film was that it was running on this theme of family verses career advancement, and the suggestion that one should not sacrifice family for career. Yeah, that's true, if it wasn't for the fact that it can be pretty hard for somebody to be able to hold down a good job, and have enough time to spend with their family. In fact, there are these stories of politicians retiring to spend more time with their family, but the reality is that for many people this really isn't an option. In fact, the need to keep paying bills, and mortgages, as well as having decent healthcare, and providing one's kids with a good education, is actually pretty costly, especially in the United States.
I guess this is what gets me with these films, in that they really don't understand the life of normal people, and we are talking about the middle class here, not the working classes, or even the service orientated classes. Honestly, it really gets me how Hollywood really seems to have this absolute disconnect with the lives of the ordinary working people in America, or even in other countries as well. Sure, there is the fact that this film was released in 2006, before the world drastically changed after the global financial crisis, but the middle class was still struggling back then, and it has only got worse. Yeah, it might be a good thing to say that one shouldn't sacrifice their family for their career, but unfortunately, in the real world, many simply just don't have that option.