CLICK - DVD review

With a premise like this, you'd expect pure silliness, especially with Adam Sandler playing the lead. A man wanders into the "Beyond" room of the local Bed, Bath, and Beyond looking for a universal remote that will simplify his life, and he gets a literal "universal" remote—a control that can do the same things to his life as normal remotes do with a television set. Pause, stop, fast-forward, skip, rewind. You name it. But "Click" is a surprisingly serious and moralistic cautionary tale that begs workaholics to stop and smell the roses—with their families—before it's too late. Picture a cross between "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Carol," with a little comedy added, and you've got a pretty good idea of how this plays out.

Michael Newman (Sandler) is a breadwinner with a capital "B." His work comes first, though it hardly seems like work. In fact, his office environment is just as fantastic as the fantasy sequences that will come later. Everywhere you look, the cubicles are occupied by gorgeous, model-quality women—except for Michael's frumpy assistant. With the head of the architectural firm (David Hasselhoff) having two women at his side cozying up to him as if he were Hugh Hefner, shouldn't that be enough to tip Michael off that he's not exactly on the fast track to become a full partner? Their latest client, the one who makes poor Michael work overtime instead of taking the family camping as he'd promised, is an Arab (Rob Schneider) who wants them to design a bar/restaurant chain which sounds suspiciously like an oasis version of Hooters.

George Bailey had angel Clarence to show him how life would be in the future had he not been born, and Scrooge had his ghosts. Here, it turns out that the guy who "sells" Michael the remote from the back, back room is also a supernatural being. But Morty (Christopher Walken), who serves as Michael's technological tour-guide and companion time-traveler, is more of a cross between the wacky inventor from "Back to the Future" and a creepy Mephistophelean who cautions Michael about the remote and can't seem to refrain from oogling Michael's wife or talking about her "rockin' body." If that's not weird enough, this remote is apparently as addictive as television, and it comes with one big catch that isn't really explained to poor Michael. His increased use of the remote leads to some pretty big leaps in his life. As a result, he sees far into his future and becomes as horrified as Scrooge to see how fat factors into his life—and I'm not spoiling a whole lot here, since the DVD box shows a picture of the gigantic Michael.

And there you have it. There's not much in the way of development. We see in the simplest of vignettes how inattentive Michael has been to his wife (Kate Beckinsale) and two children. Even his parents (Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner) spend more time with his family and attend more events with them than he does. So when Michael lays his hands on this remote, he starts small, by turning down the volume on his barking dog, or pressing fast-forward on a cold night so the bowser can do his business in a hurry. But as work intrudes on his family life, he starts playing with the remote more and more. Here's the curious thing: when work comes in conflict with family, he uses fast-forward to get through an evening with them so he can get to work on his project. Now, I'm no slacker, but if you care about your family as much as he says he does, wouldn't that work the other way around? And that, of course, is the point. Priorities. Michael has conned himself into thinking that he's doing all this for them, when they'd be perfectly happy with less money and a dad who worked regular hours in a retail job.

That sincere message has a profound effect on the film. Sandler, who played a serious grown-up sans the cutesy stuff in "Spanglish," does it again here in "Click." While there are some comic moments, the core sequences in the film are played surprisingly straight. Coraci obviously wants this to stand as another "It's a Wonderful Life." Laughs are a dime a dozen. Roses cost more, and Coraci and Sandler obviously want guys to see this film and go out and buy their significant other a bouquet. So here's a word of caution: if you're a workaholic, avoid watching this film with your spouse or significant other until AFTER you've made time in your busy work schedule to do something recreational first.

Video: I've been watching a lot of Blu-ray discs lately, and you know, you really don't notice a big difference until you go back to SD-DVDs. When we hear on the commentary track how Coraci shot the film on Hi-Def video—one of the first films to be shot in HD—and you look at it on the screen, you begin to realize the limitations of the standard disc format. It's not a bad picture, but the level of sharpness and detail isn't the same. For a standard disc, the picture quality is decent, though. The colors are vivid, with good saturation, and there's not much in the way of grain. "Click" is mastered in High Definition and presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen.

Audio: The audio options are English or French Dolby Digital 5.1, with the commentary in English on 2.0. The sound is certainly competent and serviceable, but again, compared to uncompressed PCM 6-channel sound, it lacks a certain resonance. But maybe that's an apples and oranges thing. This is an SD release, and compared to other SD releases the sound quality is just fine, with a good balance and nice spread.

Extras: The special features for this special edition are a commentary track, seven very short featurettes, and four equally short deleted scenes. In other words, The commentary by Sandler, director Frank Coraci, writer Steve Koren, and executive producer Tim Herlihy is average at best. You get the feeling that they're having more fun than we are listening to them. "Is that real ice cream?" one of them asks, and then they'll talk about mundane minutiae while we're wondering about more significant aspects of a scene or sequence.

Of the seven featurettes, "Make Me Fat" is the most interesting. We see Sandler being tortured for four hours and bleeped when he blurts out the F-word. But lest you think it's all make-up, this feature reveals that a real fat guy was used for the naked sequences with "head replacement." The "Humping Dogs" featurette is also interesting, as we see that those little buggers weren't trained to hump away on that big furry duckie pillow. They were physically moved by a man in green-suit. But like the fat feature, it's pretty much a one-insight extra. Same with others on "Fine Cooking", "Cars of the Future," "Design My Universe," and "FX of 'Click'." The "Director's Take" isn't what it sounds like. Instead, it's the cast's take on Coraci, which amounts to a brief tribute/profile and has nothing to do with the film per se.

The deleted scenes are as short as they come and still qualify to be termed "scenes," with only one of them really interesting. In it, Sandler expresses the same joy upon reentering his old world as George Bailey did when he got all hysterically happy over his cut mouth and Zuzu's petals. It reinforces just how much of an update they wanted to do on "It's a Wonderful Life."

Bottom Line: "Click" is an entertaining movie, but it's not a riotously funny one. "It's a Wonderful Life" didn't wow them at the box office when it first came out. It was only over time that it became a beloved classic. I don't know if "Click" has that potential. What's here seems well done and sincere enough. It's just that there seems to be something missing, something that would have given the film more heart . . . and soul. I'm not sure what that is, frankly, except that when "Click" was over and I clicked off the TV, I didn't feel as emotionally satisfied as I would have thought. Maybe the problem is in the set-up. We don't see nearly enough of Michael's interaction with his family to appreciate what he's truly losing, and for that matter we don't see enough sides of Michael to appreciate him the way we do George Bailey.