Click

Adam Sandler is one of those Hollywood anomalies that strangles logic and glorifies bad taste. Through a history of silly ass roles - the American version is faux Jerry Lewis - he advances towards middle age, fatter, uglier and worse tempered.

Michael Newman in Click is selfish and inconsiderate. He is married to Donna (Kate Beckinsale), the sexiest soccer mom and sweetest human being in suburban make-believe, and yet his performance between the sheets is pathetic and his commitment to his job far outstrips that for his wife and kids.

Here comes the message: DON'T BE LIKE MICHAEL NEWMAN.

No worries, mate. Who on earth would consider it? Actually, it's not the chap so much as the concept. Workaholics die alone; Scrooge was no fun. If you have to choose between taking the family on a camping trip, or staying late at the office to get that promotion, what's it to be? If you're Jim Carrey, you strap the tent on the roof rack and hit the road, but Jim Carrey's not going to be CEO, is he? If you're Michael Newman, you lie to Donna, work all hours, eat junk food, suck up to the boss (none other than The Schmoozemeister himself, David Hasslehoff) and clog your arteries.

There is a gimmick, or rather a gizmo, without which the film might have sorted out its issues in a more rational and comedic manner. The magic trick is a remote control thingy, given to Michael by an eccentric inventor, called Morty (Christopher Walken, with brown curly wig), who has a workshop at the back of a home furnishings superstore. With this remote Michael can pause, rewind and fast forward his life, so that when Donna is nagging him about parental duties - no, the tree house won't be finished, kids, no matter what Dad says - he can freeze frame her, or when she says, "You mean, you can't remember the song that was playing when we had our first kiss," he can rewind to the exact moment and hey! it was Linger by The Cranberries.

All good things have disturbing side effects and the magic remote has two - Michael can't get rid of it and suddenly it goes into fast forward on its own and won't stop. Morty turns out to be an angel of death, which is like one of those ghosts in A Christmas Carol. Meanwhile, the film has disintegrated from a base comedy, in which fart jokes, fat suits and randy dogs are the height of humour, to the ultimate Jewish schmaltz, which oozes across the screen like a river of molten butterscotch.

Beckinsale is wasted; Walken is amused; The Hoff is loving it; Sandler is in your face.

Pause. Stop. Switch off.