Fast-Forward....Wait! Click

Ever feel like your whole life is passing you by? Spend too much time at work and your family is growing up without you? Here's a guy that knows how you feel.

Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) is an up-and-coming architect with a "smoking hot" wife (Kate Beckinsale) and two beautiful children, Ben and Samantha who adore him (as kids, played by Joseph Castanon and Tatum McCann respectively). He works hard...way too hard, some might say, but his boss (David Hasselhoff) keeps hinting at all that work paying off if he'll do "just one more thing" to become partner. That one more thing just happens to force a cancellation of the 4th of July camping trip Michael had been planning with his family, leading to a huge fight with his wife, ending in Michael roaring off in the family van in search of a universal remote so he can at least turn on the TV and the ceiling fan and open the garage without a zillion remotes hanging around just like his snobbish neighbors have.

He ends up in the only store open in the middle of the night...Bed, Bath, and Beyond. There Michael becomes acquainted with a very kooky and obviously lonely sales person, lays down on a display bed, then walks through a doorway in the back of the store, past all the bed and bath items sections, labeled "and Beyond".

Through a dark, cavernous room Michael finds a cluttered workshop inhabited by a mad-scientist looking character named Morty (Christopher Walken). Morty offers Michael a special universal remote that's not on the market yet, and says he can have it for free.

Michael takes the thing home, and continues on with his life. The next day strange things start happening, and he quickly realizes that this universal remote is just that...a remote to control the universe. He can pause, access special features, mute, and fast-forward...but while he's fast-forwarding his body is on "auto pilot", keeping him functioning like a very dazed and distant version of himself.

But then it starts doing things it's not supposed to do. Michael takes it back to Morty, who explains that the remote has a memory function that stores the user's preferences and works automatically to fulfill his wishes. As Michael literally fast-forwards through his life he starts to realize where his priorities should have been all along.

This movie starts out as a straight comedy. With a star like Adam Sandler, it has to have funny in it or it's just not an Adam Sandler movie. Watching the previews it looked like a very funny movie and my husband and I looked forward to purchasing it the moment we got a chance. On the first day it was out on DVD we pounced.

Turns out it is quite funny. There are elements of humor throughout most of the movie, but then it does something I didn't expect from an Adam Sandler movie. It gets serious. Sandler's character is forced to do some major soul-searching as his life slips away before his eyes, every day he wakes up could mean ten years gone from his life.

One really doesn't expect Adam Sandler to be in a tear-jerker, but near the end that's where it gets to...but don't worry, it ends well and there are some final laughs! In my opinion, this is Sandler's best film ever.

Frankly, a lot of his empty-headed comedies (Billy Madison, Big Daddy, Little Nicky) tend to get on my nerves. There are some moods in which I enjoy them, but in small doses. More recently Sandler seems to be getting into some more serious roles that honestly show off his talent (The Longest Yard, 50 First Dates, Anger Management) with a little more meat than just making people laugh.

In this film Adam Sandler showed off his more mature side and really brought his character to life as a young overworked father and husband, a morbidly obese middle-aged man, and finally as an old man nearing the end of his life. I don't often cry during movies, but this one got to me a bit.

As for the rest of the cast, Christopher Walken is one of my favorite actors and does an excellent job as the "wise eccentric", a role he's played several times (Joe Dirt, Man of the Year). The gorgeous Kate Beckinsale plays a trophy wife of unquestionable integrity who is tested to the limit, another well-casted role.

This cast is full of excellent, big-name actors such as Jennifer Coolidge, Jake Hoffman, Sean Astin, Henry Winkler, and Rob Schneider as Prince Habeeboo amongst many many others so it is quite difficult to mention each great performance by name. Suffice to say there was a lot of money spent in casting this movie, and it paid off with a wonderful mesh of experienced actors who did full justice to the story.

Special effects are awesome. This movie shows you just how far the film industry has come in making everything realistic and believable no matter what is happening.

It's been a while since I've seen a brand new movie that I genuinely liked beginning to end. This movie turned out much better than I'd expected and I certainly never regret spending the $20 to purchase it on DVD...even though I have now watched it about a dozen times. This one is worth watching!