This is actually like two movies in one.
The first is fairly typical Adam Sandler fare: It's what you're used to seeing if you've ever seen, well, any of his movies. It's also what you're likely to think of if you actually saw the trailer for the movie.
Dad's too busy for the family, he heads out for a universal remote, gets a truly universal remote, and can control anything. Hilarity ensues. He uses it to walk the dog faster, watch the girl in the short shorts run slower, make the jerk next door look stupid, that sort of thing. There is absolutely nothing surprising about any of this.
What is surprising is that somewhere in all of that, they completely forgot to mention that it's (maybe) half the movie.
Sure, Michael Newman (New.. man - get it?) does all of those things. He doesn't have enough time and he goes to get a universal remote because he is too stupid to figure out which remote controls the fan, which one controls the garage door opener (who has a remote for the garage sitting on their coffee table?) and which one controls the helicopter (who has a remote that controls a helicopter and can't tell if it works the television?). I think it would be easier to move all the non-television remotes to another place, but that's me.
What he gets is a remote that has about a half-dozen buttons and it controls his universe. Sure, it controls the television, but it controls everything else, too - whatever he points it at, it controls. Volume, speed, what have you. He can mute the dog, make it go faster, even pause real-life and fast-forward through fights with his wife. The only problem is that the remote is a real learning remote, and as you use it, it starts to figure out what you like, so it does things on its own.
And that's when the other movie kicks in. When Michael fast forwards through fights, the remote automatically starts fast-forwarding through all of his fights, because it thinks that's what he wants to do.
When he speeds through sex to get back to work, the remote does the same in the future. Did I mention that the remote is also voice-activated? So when he decided that he needs to jump to a point in his life where he is promoted, the remote responds.
What he doesn't realize is that his boss is a jerk, and it's a year later. Even worse is all the automatic behavior that entails. So over the course of that year, he not only misses out on his family growth (and death) during that time, but the remote continues to learn - all the fast-forwarding continues to build up, making it worse and worse.
The next time he starts to fight, it happens again. Then he gets promoted and he wakes up from an automatic jump and suddenly it's ten years later and he is alone, but he's at the top of his profession. Unfortunately, the family is gone. They are still alive, but his wife has left him. And so it goes, time after time. He missed his kids growing, his dad dying, and on and on.
He gets no sympathy from his "benefactor" Morty (the always enjoyable Christopher Walken), because Michael was on fast forward anyway.
While he can lie to his wife and himself, he can't lie to the remote. So one day he just collapses, and that's it - his life is over. As he is dying, his son says he has to leave and cancel his honeymoon because the business needs him, and he knows that his son is making the same mistake, and he tries to make things better, but he thinks he is too late. And then he wakes up in the store - it was all just a dream.
In all truth, it's a pretty decent movie - but if you saw the trailer, you saw an advertisement for a typical Adam Sandler movie, and that was at best half the movie that was shown. Give it a chance and you might enjoy it.
Rated PG-13 for language, crude and sex-related humor and some drug references.
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