Click is not entirely a comedy, but it carries a good message

Adam Sandler’s Click was a bit of a surprise to me, because it wasn’t the straightforward sci-fi comedy I expected it to be. I know that Sandler is trying to branch out with more dramatic roles, and he gets to do a bit of acting in this film. You might enjoy this movie, but don’t go into it expecting to a bunch of laughs. This movie has a serious side to it.

Adam Sandler stars as a real estate executive who has devoted too much of his life to his job and constantly disappoints his beautiful wife (Kate Beckinsale) and two children. It gets even worse when he cancels a highly anticipated family vacation so that he can meet a ridiculous building design deadline for his boss, played by David Hasselhoff. Sandler’s wife and kids still love him, but they don’t know how to compete with his job, which seems to be taking up more and more of his time. His father, played by Henry ‘Fonzy’ Winkler, can’t reason with him either.

One night, Sandler goes out shopping for a universal remote control, and he ends up at a Bed, Bath, and Beyond store in one of those most blatant in-movie advertisements I have seen in a while. First he looks in the Bed section, then the Bath section, then he finally notices a door in the back of the building with the word Beyond above it. Sandler goes inside and meets Christopher Walken (channeling a Back to the Future Christopher Lloyd) who plays a type of mad scientist who happens to have a real ‘universal’ remote control.

The twist is that the remote actually controls the universe. When Sandler’s dog is barking too loud, he can turn the volume down. When there’s too much going on around him, he can hit the pause button. In one part he is sick, so he fast forwards a few days until he’s better again. He even fast forwards through some family dinners because he didn’t feel like dealing with everyone. Very soon, he’s fast forwarding through years of his life and missing out on a lot of important things. It’s sort of like A Christmas Carol where he gets to watch other people’s lives change around him.

Although I enjoyed Click, I thought the last half of the movie took on too serious a tone, and the comic relief was rare. The first half of the movie was so funny that the seriousness of the latter half distorted the balance of the film, in my opinion. This movie starts off like many Sandler movies where there’s lot of slapstick and yelling, but it quickly gets serious and stays serious. This movie was written by the guys who did Bruce Almighty, which I think did a slightly better job of blending comedy and drama.

I still love Adam Sandler after all these years because he still has that everyman quality about him. He’s worth millions and yet still seems a little bashful when he goes on talk shows. I like that he doesn’t act like one of those celebrities who thinks we should all listen to his silly opinions just because he’s famous. Sandler gets to show a little more range than usual with his acting in this movie. Beckinsale, unfortunately, doesn’t have too much to do in this movie but look gorgeous, which she does quite naturally well. David Hasselhoff gives a great performance as the demanding boss who strings Sandler along.

Director Frank Coraci did a good job with this film, though it did seem to run a bit long. Coraci scored two Sandler hits a while back with The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy, then he dropped a major bomb with his remake of Around the World in 80 Days. Luckily, he redeemed himself with this movie. Sandler still manages to score solid box office numbers with almost every movie, and this is another one of many that have earned well over $100 million.

The point of this movie is one that focuses on the family and how you should not let yourself be so caught up in your job that you neglect the people who love you. I’ve worked in several types of industries in the past, and there’s usually someone there who seems to never leave. I can understand having a good work ethic and taking your job seriously, but I don’t see how these people can spend literally every daylight hour of the week tied up in their jobs, especially with a spouse and/or children at home. On the other hand, maybe it’s the spouse and kids that keep these people at work all those extra hours.

When I was in graduate school, we had a class taught by the dean of my major, and one of the last things he did in class was write a list on the board in front of us. It was probably one of the most important lessons I ever learned in any of my many college classes. This was his list:

1. God
2. Family
3. Work

He told us that if we really want to be happy in life, we should prioritize our lives by that list. I was surprised to have a professor tell us that even though we were going that extra mile to earn a Master’s degree and land better jobs, we should not let those new jobs take over our lives. Although I believe a strong work ethic is a valuable trait, I also agree with my professor. Unless you work for yourself, what’s the point of spending the majority of the most vibrant years of your life tied up in some office where you bust your rear to earn most of the big bucks for someone else, just so 30 some odd years later you can retire just in time to go home and die?