Click (warning, spoilers)

Let me talk to you a bit about genre.

I'm not the biggest fan of genre, but I do respect it as a viable method of writing. The rules of genre that defines things as Drama, Comedy, Tragedy, Fantasy, Romance and others have been set in stone over many centuries of evolution.

However, when someone tries to break trends, and makes a movie that fills two genres that are almost completely different in tone and execution, there's a small amount of respect that is earned for being able to make a movie like that, especially when it is a success.

And that's where we get to Click, probably one of the most famous examples of a dramatic genre shift in the history of film.

Click stars Adam Sandler, and for the first two thirds of the film, is the typical Adam Sandler fare, with crude  humor, gross-out jokes, and general Adam Sandler randomness about an architect (what?) who is stressed with life and discovers a literal Universal Remote that helps his life be a little easier. He manages to fast forward sickness, rewind to previous events to relive them (albeit from an outsider perspective) and mute his wife's annoying friend.

There's only one catch: You can't relive the past, only rewatch it.

And when he accidentally fast forwards years of his life away, leaving his body on 'autopilot' (which is basically an emotionless version of himself) he finds that he divorced the wife he loved so much, his dad died of old age without him noticing or even being there, and his son has grown up to become a successful heir to his architecture company, the only problem being there's a severe lack of relationship between them (because when he got the remote, the son was only four years old, and he grew up to be thirty)

And this is where the dramatic genre shift occurs. Sandler wishes to rekindle his relationship with his family, who, mind you, has drifted off in different directions without him noticing, while his fat, unhealthy self is dying slowly.

Anyway, if you haven't seen the film, but don't care about spoilers (why else will you still be reading this) this event leads to the death of the main character, in an event that gets close to getting an emotional reaction for me (my number 1 sign of quality in a film) if it wasn't for Sandler.

The story is great, Adam Sandler isn't. This is a type of film that would've benefited from a better comedian, such as Jim Carrey (who proved that he could handle dramatic roles with 'The Truman Show') or even Robin Williams (who is constantly trying to be a dramatic actor, with variable results). Sandler's trademark screwball humor just feels out of place with the tone of the rest of the movie. Even Walken, who's considered the weirdest actor in the world, feels more in place in his comedic role as the angel of death who gives Sandler the remote in the first place, feels more in place than Sandler. If it was an all drama cast, with only Walken as the comic relief character, it would've been a far better movie, in my opinion.

My conclusion for this movie is that the Drama is great, the Comedy isn't. it got one of the two genres in this genre-bending film wrong by having Sandler in it, when a far more capable actor could've easily taken the role. It's a good movie, mind you, just not as good as it could've been.