When you are looking after an ickle fella only 5 months young, your chances of getting to the cinema are severely limited. So I love it when a movie comes out on DVD in North America before it reaches the silver screen here in Blighty.
And despite Adam Sandler having produced a few turkeys recently, his films are still consistently entertaining enough to warrant a night in with one. So when Click was released on DVD shortly before it hit the big screen here, I nabbed a copy and we settled down to watch.
Starring Sandler as Michael Newman, a workaholic architect whose boss (The Hoffmeister himself) is flogging him to death on the promise of making a partner after the next big job. As a result, Michael’s wife (the highly comely Kate Beckinsale) and his two kids are increasingly sidelined in his life.
In a slightly contrived search for a universal remote control, Newman finds himself in electronics shop of the highly eccentric Morty (played with spacey aplomb by Chrisopher Walken), who offers him a universal remote that controls everything. And I mean everything. Newman soon realises that the remote can do more than mute his nagging wife - it allows him to fast forward through the boring stuff so that he can get his work done.
However, as with similar morality tales, the gift soon becomes a curse as he finds himself jumping enormous periods of his life as if on autopilot, leaving him to rue the big moments of his family’s life that he has passed by.
It’s a funny movie, fairly simple humour, necessary really as the story itself moves at quite a pace. It’s plenty of fun although after a while I “got it” and didn’t really need to see the movie moving in to a future in Bicentennial Man stylee. For a film of this type it carries a strong message; live in the moment, don’t wish your life away looking towards the future, something that perhaps resonates with me now having a little fella to bring up. However there was one aspect of the movie that really annoyed me - Newman fast forwards through things rather than the obvious answer. If you need to get your work done…PAUSE!
Anyhoo one to catch when you get a chance…
