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'Click' unoriginal flop; Sandler fails to entice laughter, amusement

June 26, 2006
Adam Sandler plays a workaholic architect in the movie "Click."

Rewind, stop, eject.

Adam Sandler has always come across as a nincompoop, but he used to be a funny idiot, like in "Billy Madison" and "Happy Gilmore." But with his new half-baked, unemotional, remote control fantasy, "Click," he's hit an all-time low of lazy, imbecile comedy.

Where to begin?

First category of stupidity: Sandler's facial expressions.

Maybe it wasn't as noticeable in his other films because they were entertaining, but why doesn't Sandler ever open his mouth more than halfway?

It's annoying to watch a grown man speak in a goofy, childlike tone — "Ah har har har!" — with his lips pushed together, barely unclenched, to deliver corny, juvenile wisecracks.

Let's see some growth. Bill Murray and Jim Carrey have both increasingly taken on clever roles. Sandler needs to just tap, tap his career into an inventive path. Look what happened to Rob Schneider, and who wants that?

Second category of stupidity: The plot.

"Click" totally rips off the plotline from "It's a Wonderful Life," but instead of viewing the world without him — like James Stewart, as George Bailey, does in the 1946 classic — Sandler experiences his life on autopilot.

Sandler, as architect Michael Newman, begins to fast-forward through all of the things he hates about his life: fighting with his wife, working, and at one point, having sex with his wife. The "universal remote" then programs itself to remember what Newman fast-forwarded past so it can later repeat fast-forwarding through these events.

And since Sandler's character is such a fathead nitwit in the film, it never crosses his mind to rewind — duh. Not only does he fail to think of rewinding, but it's hard to believe any man would fast-forward a hug with his wife, played by Kate Beckinsale, not to mention an intimate moment.

Nothing really makes sense in this movie if you think about it for more than one second.

Third category of stupidity: Corny jokes.

All of the over-the-top tasteless joke staples are in "Click" — dogs humping stuffed animals, fart jokes and Michael Jackson stabs. The level of creative jokes is very low: They are boring, overdone and mildly offensive.

Fourth category of stupidity: The beautiful people.

Pretty much everyone in the film — besides Sandler, Christopher Walken and Henry Winkler — is drop-dead gorgeous.

By surrounding himself with nicely-tanned people who look like they have had plastic surgery, Sandler makes himself out to be a creepy old man. He should have concerned himself with creating a funny film, rather than rounding up the beautiful people.

But why would Sandler care that he made an unoriginal piece of trash? He still got paid to hang out with his eye-catching beauties.

The one shining star was Walken — who always gives a first-class performance. But his witty dialogue wasn't enough to save the sinking ship.

To top everything off, the remote doesn't even look that cool. It's just a normal-looking blue clicker.

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