2D Women and typical Sandler

Rating: 3/10 (5 February 2019)

Re-watching Click for the first time in perhaps a decade seemed a good idea on paper - how could a loveable film with an immensely fun concept at its core be anything but a dead ringer for my fondest memories of it? Well...
The universal remote control that controls your universe, seeming ingenius at the time, proved itself to be something of a play-by-play rip-off of the eminently better Bruce Almighty (complete with women troubles, manipulating the dog's free will, and 'God' - who in this case is a Christopher Walken-shaped Death), with the creative remainder taking all of its direction from A Christmas Carol. There is nothing new or inventive about Click, its plot, its acting (it is, as ever, Adam Sandler playing shouty, angry, horny Adam Sandler), and its characters.
On the point of characters: Click is sexist beyond belief. When I went to see this at the cinema as a much younger man, I was so caught up in the fart gags and the dog penetratinf a hole in his toy duck's backside, that I didn't notice the lack of anything constituing a genuine female character - as, neither did the writers. Kate Beckinsale, as Sandler's wife, is as close as we get, but even then she really only exists to further the male protagonist's plot, seeming to have no greater narrative drive than what man she might ultimately end up serving. Beyond her, every woman seems to be no more than a brainless pair of breasts in a plunging neckline - other than Sandler's timid assistant, whose only purpose in the film is to briefly become transgender for a deeply offensive throwaway gag. The fact that this film dedicates an entire scene to a sexual harassment seminar, trying to lampoon the sexist corporate landscape whilst at the same time upholding it, shows how utterly out of touch and unaware of itself it really is.