What's here seems well done and sincere enough. It's just that there seems to be something missing, something that would have given the film more heart . . . and soul.
Video: I've been watching a lot of Blu-ray discs lately, and you know, you really don't notice a big difference until you go back to SD-DVDs. When we hear on the commentary track how Coraci shot the film on Hi-Def video—one of the first films to be shot in HD—and you look at it on the screen, you begin to realize the limitations of the standard disc format. It's not a bad picture, but the level of sharpness and detail isn't the same. For a standard disc, the picture quality is decent, though. The colors are vivid, with good saturation, and there's not much in the way of grain. "Click" is mastered in High Definition and presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen.
Audio: The audio options are English or French Dolby Digital 5.1, with the commentary in English on 2.0. The sound is certainly competent and serviceable, but again, compared to uncompressed PCM 6-channel sound, it lacks a certain resonance. But maybe that's an apples and oranges thing. This is an SD release, and compared to other SD releases the sound quality is just fine, with a good balance and nice spread.
Extras: The special features for this special edition are a commentary track, seven very short featurettes, and four equally short deleted scenes. In other words, The commentary by Sandler, director Frank Coraci, writer Steve Koren, and executive producer Tim Herlihy is average at best. You get the feeling that they're having more fun than we are listening to them. "Is that real ice cream?" one of them asks, and then they'll talk about mundane minutiae while we're wondering about more significant aspects of a scene or sequence.
Of the seven featurettes, "Make Me Fat" is the most interesting. We see Sandler being tortured for four hours and bleeped when he blurts out the F-word. But lest you think it's all make-up, this feature reveals that a real fat guy was used for the naked sequences with "head replacement." The "Humping Dogs" featurette is also interesting, as we see that those little buggers weren't trained to hump away on that big furry duckie pillow. They were physically moved by a man in green-suit. But like the fat feature, it's pretty much a one-insight extra. Same with others on "Fine Cooking", "Cars of the Future," "Design My Universe," and "FX of 'Click'." The "Director's Take" isn't what it sounds like. Instead, it's the cast's take on Coraci, which amounts to a brief tribute/profile and has nothing to do with the film per se.
The deleted scenes are as short as they come and still qualify to be termed "scenes," with only one of them really interesting. In it, Sandler expresses the same joy upon reentering his old world as George Bailey did when he got all hysterically happy over his cut mouth and Zuzu's petals. It reinforces just how much of an update they wanted to do on "It's a Wonderful Life."
Bottom Line: "Click" is an entertaining movie, but it's not a riotously funny one. "It's a Wonderful Life" didn't wow them at the box office when it first came out. It was only over time that it became a beloved classic. I don't know if "Click" has that potential. What's here seems well done and sincere enough. It's just that there seems to be something missing, something that would have given the film more heart . . . and soul. I'm not sure what that is, frankly, except that when "Click" was over and I clicked off the TV, I didn't feel as emotionally satisfied as I would have thought. Maybe the problem is in the set-up. We don't see nearly enough of Michael's interaction with his family to appreciate what he's truly losing, and for that matter we don't see enough sides of Michael to appreciate him the way we do George Bailey.
Audio: The audio options are English or French Dolby Digital 5.1, with the commentary in English on 2.0. The sound is certainly competent and serviceable, but again, compared to uncompressed PCM 6-channel sound, it lacks a certain resonance. But maybe that's an apples and oranges thing. This is an SD release, and compared to other SD releases the sound quality is just fine, with a good balance and nice spread.
Extras: The special features for this special edition are a commentary track, seven very short featurettes, and four equally short deleted scenes. In other words, The commentary by Sandler, director Frank Coraci, writer Steve Koren, and executive producer Tim Herlihy is average at best. You get the feeling that they're having more fun than we are listening to them. "Is that real ice cream?" one of them asks, and then they'll talk about mundane minutiae while we're wondering about more significant aspects of a scene or sequence.
Of the seven featurettes, "Make Me Fat" is the most interesting. We see Sandler being tortured for four hours and bleeped when he blurts out the F-word. But lest you think it's all make-up, this feature reveals that a real fat guy was used for the naked sequences with "head replacement." The "Humping Dogs" featurette is also interesting, as we see that those little buggers weren't trained to hump away on that big furry duckie pillow. They were physically moved by a man in green-suit. But like the fat feature, it's pretty much a one-insight extra. Same with others on "Fine Cooking", "Cars of the Future," "Design My Universe," and "FX of 'Click'." The "Director's Take" isn't what it sounds like. Instead, it's the cast's take on Coraci, which amounts to a brief tribute/profile and has nothing to do with the film per se.
The deleted scenes are as short as they come and still qualify to be termed "scenes," with only one of them really interesting. In it, Sandler expresses the same joy upon reentering his old world as George Bailey did when he got all hysterically happy over his cut mouth and Zuzu's petals. It reinforces just how much of an update they wanted to do on "It's a Wonderful Life."
Bottom Line: "Click" is an entertaining movie, but it's not a riotously funny one. "It's a Wonderful Life" didn't wow them at the box office when it first came out. It was only over time that it became a beloved classic. I don't know if "Click" has that potential. What's here seems well done and sincere enough. It's just that there seems to be something missing, something that would have given the film more heart . . . and soul. I'm not sure what that is, frankly, except that when "Click" was over and I clicked off the TV, I didn't feel as emotionally satisfied as I would have thought. Maybe the problem is in the set-up. We don't see nearly enough of Michael's interaction with his family to appreciate what he's truly losing, and for that matter we don't see enough sides of Michael to appreciate him the way we do George Bailey.
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