Learn from my mistake

Rating: 2/10 (25 June 2006)

I was unlucky enough to go see Click this weekend. I'd heard the premise and thought, hey, that could be a really fun film. There have been some excellent films with similar themes before, such as Groundhog Day and Being There, and Sandler and Beckinsale and Walken are all good actors, so why not?
Because, this is the movie-length equivalent of a really bad episode of a really dumb sitcom, like Married With Children. It's completely predictable from the first few scenes, the plot and the characters are all utterly contrived, and the jokes are childish, insulting and lame, unless your idea of good humor is watching a fat woman with hairy pits acting like she's having sex and then having someone comment, "What is this, Animal Planet?" There was exactly one line in the film that was actually funny (alert... minor spoiler follows): Sandler finds himself suddenly a few years in the future, and the first thing he hears on a radio broadcast is "Michael Jackson, the first person to clone himself, is suing himself for molesting himself." There. You've heard the good line, so you can skip the film.
I'm giving it two stars instead of one because it has two slightly redeeming features. First, the "moral of the story", despite being really obvious and being presented really heavy-handedly, is actually really good. In a way, that made it even worse, though, because after sitting through this emotionally wrenching story about a man totally screwing everything he cares about, I just ended up feeling manipulated. And second, on a purely visual level, the film is well-done. There were a lot of beautiful and imaginative sets, and frankly, although she's been much sexier in other films, spending a little time watching Beckinsale is never unpleasant.
Bottom line: if you can't resist seeing this piece of crap, wait for the DVD.