Channel Surfing Through Life
In today's corporate world, most people have figured out that balancing career and family is a difficult task. If you want to be CEO of a top insurance firm, you may have to sacrifice your plan of getting married at 23; if you decide you want three kids before you're thirty, you might want to settle into a job that gives you the flexibility to watch them grow up. Because if one thing is abundantly clear in the pursuit of work/family balance, it's that there's very often not enough time in the day for both.

In Click, Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) has come to terms with this in his own way. He's an up and coming architect and wants to make partner one day, so he often brings his work home, forgoing time with his family in favor of getting ahead. And though his heart is in the right place - he does it all to make a better life for his family - his gung ho attitude towards work disappoints them. In a vain effort to get some control where he can, he storms out of the house one night in search of a universal remote control, figuring that he should at least be able to figure out a way to rein in the technology and toys that litter his house. He goes to the "Beyond" section of his local Bed, Bath & Beyond, where he runs into Morty (Christopher Walken), a weird clerk who give Michael a remote that will do just what he wants: control everything. Michael soon finds out exactly what "everything" means.

If you had a remote that could pause and fast forward time, and your biggest problem was that you didn't have enough time for both work and family, what would you do? Pause life in the middle of the night so you can sneak downstairs and finish a big project, then press play again so you could catch some sleep before the next morning? That seems to make the most sense of any of the options. Michael doesn't use this logic. He skips through a weekend's worth of working, then through a bout with the common cold, and then through an entire year until he earns his promotion. In every coin flip between work and life, architecture wins out. He even fast forwards through marital relations with his smoking hot wife (Kate Beckinsale) so he can get back to work. Soon, the remote learns his preferences and starts skipping through years at a time so Michael can climb the corporate ranks without having to do all that pesky work. But, as he watches his kids' ages skip from seven to seventeen in the blink of an eye, he realizes what he really wanted all along. And though he wants to skip back and spend time with his family, the rewind button doesn't work that way. It's a tough but valuable lesson about appreciating your family.

Click doesn't strictly follow the crude comedic path that Sandler's career has forged in movies like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, nor does it fully embrace the subtle humor and artistic pacing of his Punch-Drunk Love. The result is a messy mashup of comedy and sweet lessons, with neither presenting a convincing case. Sandler does a decent job as Michael, but he too often reaches back to his childish humor to bring out emotion. Walken is hilarious playing an imitation of himself; any time Morty pops into Michael's life to gleefully watch how much trouble the remote has caused is a scene worth watching. Beckinsale doesn't do much besides look good, but she does that just fine. Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner turn in sweet but forgettable performances as Michael's parents, and if the movie was supposed to be a tribute to Sandler's father, you don't see it in the parental characters until Michael's moving scene when he realizes that he skipped over his father's death.

While moderately entertaining at times, Click is just another movie to add to this year's list of mediocre movies that aren't good enough to recommend but not offensive enough to detest. If you have the choice between it and spending time with your family, though, I'd follow the movie's lesson and opt for Putt-Putt with the kids.

Rating: * * 1/2 of 5