Click is a basic Faustian story. It is Faust done as a comedy, but because Faust is a pretty dark tale all told, a few tweaks have been made. Instead of the Devil we have Christopher Walken (some say the same thing). Instead of a contract we have a consumer goods with a non-returnable policy. And instead of eternal damnation we have:
AND THEN I WOKE UP…
As soon as you have twigged that this is a Faustian comedy you know that its got to have a reset button somewhere. And you twig its comedy hook from the moment you are aware of the extremely high concept of the film. Man gets Universal Remote Control – WHICH CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE. After cursory exploration of functions (inexplicable screen in screen, pause, volume) the rest of the film is stuck playing out the consequence of using the fast forward button too much. Hence the clunky old moral of not wishing your life away. But the life whisks away and an fantastically sentimental last half hour has to be rebooted.
But wait, wasn’t there that section when Sandler’s character rolled across a bed, just before he got the remote control? I like “And Then I Woke Up” endings, but this one is so obvious it takes all the fun out of it. Not that there is too much fun in any film where “Linger” by the Cranberries is not only an important plot point, but posited as some sort of standard that will be sung by non-Sandler Wedding Singers twenty years in the future.