Click

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who find Adam Sandler unpleasant, and those who find him so unpleasant that they can't stand watching his films. If you're among the latter, nothing will save this movie for you. If you're among the former, you'll be pleased to know that this is one of those occasions in which Sandler makes his natural unpleasantness work for him and, in so doing, raises a familiar story one notch above the competition.

An architect with an unfeasibly sexy wife and two adoring (albeit somewhat saccharine) children, Sandler's Michael is a workaholic frantic to make a success of his career; he's so obnoxious about it that it's hard to see why anyone puts up with him, but things are about to get a lot worse. As the pressure mounts for him to meet tight deadlines, Michael comes into possession of a supernatural device - a universal remote control capable of controlling his universe - which can enable him to turn down the sound on nagging, zip back in time to retrieve information he's forgotten, and fast forward through boring or unpleasant sections of his life on autopilot.

Having fun at first, Michael soon finds himself out of control. He should have known better than to accept a free gift from a creepy little man in the backroom Beyond section of superstore Bed, Bath & Beyond. Christopher Walken, channeling Doc Brown and Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka, turns in an inspired performance in one of his most sinister roles yet, whilst Sandler draws on the latent psychosis which he used so well in Punch Drunk Love to illustrate his character's desperation and vulnerability from the start. Michael is not a nice man, but he is a man we can care about if we are willing to face up to the more unpleasant aspects of ourselves.

Click is, ultimately, a sort of updated It's A Wonderful Life, but with a very different atmosphere. It contains a lot of cheap and rather tedious humour, with lazy jokes at the expense of women and transsexuals; fart jokes; and even David Hasselhoff; yet somehow manages to be more than the sum of its parts. For a Saturday night popcorn comedy with a darker edge, you could do a lot worse.