4. Click (2006)
Sci fi - Comedy to Drama Although, it being an Adam Sandler film, the term 'comedy' is used loosely. And, presumably in an attempt not to alienate his audience, even the sci-fi aspect is kept to a minimum. Instead we have the perennial man-child delivering his trademark loudmouth comedy with just a little drop of 'magic'. So when his character, Michael Newman, discovers a remote control that enables him to pause, rewind and fast-forward time, he realises that he has been gifted with the perfect opportunity to single-handedly right the world's wrongs. And so he freezes time so that he can control the volume of his dog's barking and fart in his boss' (David Hasselhoff) face. Yet as hilarious as I'm sure all this is,
Click cannot sustain such Wildean wit for the best part of two hours and so hurriedly crams in some sort of moral message. For as Michael fast-forwards through everything he wishes he could avoid (such as catching a cold, skipping that long slog up to promotion known as 'hard work', being corrected by-- boo! hiss!-- his loving wife) he doesn't understand that he's in fact watching his, and his family's, life zoom by. At this rate he'll have no memories of his kids growing up, no recollection of his wife gradually slipping away from him. And so, like an electronically- minded Ebenezer Scrooge, a frightening vision of the future (courtesy of a rather Mephistophelean Christopher Walken) persuades him to change the error of his ways. There's a superbly biting satire to be made around just how our technological dependency is draining away our days- but this isn't it. No, this is Adam Sandler looking all sentimental and stuff. And not before time, too. For there's nobody Hollywood hates more than a workaholic who doesn't have time for his family.