Egregiously Unfunny

Rating: 3/10 (14 September 2010)

If there's one thing about movies that I cannot stand, it's when a movie rips off other ideas, movies, or stories. If there's another thing about movies I cannot stand, it's Adam Sandler. This movie is what I like to call a "Double Whammy." Now, to be fair, I feel like Adam Sandler himself was not as bad here as I have seen him in the past. Is he good? Well, I can't go that far. But, he does put in an inkling of effort, which really shows in the last few scenes of the movie. Throughout the rest of the movie, though, he is egregiously unfunny. He tries at the jokes, but he fails, miserably. This movie is basically the plot of It's a Wonderful Life, mixed with a little Christmas Carol, and topped off with a little Back to the Future for good luck. It insults me that so much unoriginality could go into what starts off as a halfway decent premise. Not a great premise, but halfway decent. It's a fairly good idea—a remote that can control every part of your life, like brightness or languages. Except, wouldn't it have been nice for someone to turn this baby into a universal translator instead of playing to Adam Sandler's needs? Other than that, the characters aren't all that interesting. We've seen all of these characters before, and even most of these lines before. The only part of this film that was any good was at the very end. I won't give it away, but it wasn't played out all that badly. As for the rest of the film... Well, simply put, there's a reason why George Bailey was such a nice guy in It's a Wonderful Life; it's kind of hard to feel sorry for a douche bag.
3/10