Imagine a remote control that as well as switching channels and setting the video could rewind, fast-forward and freeze life itself.

Just one press of a button could skip those tedious rows with the wife and a quick scan forwards means you don't have to wait for that promotion.

In the hands of Charlie Kaufman or even Terry Gilliam this novel premise would be blessed with glittering potential. Unfortunately, it's fallen to Adam Sandler.

He can do it when he wants to (cf Punch Drunk Love). But here, where an ingenious plot device demands a bit of thought, he slumps back into goofball default.

Yet things kick off promisingly enough. Sandler plays Michael Newman, a workaholic architect driven by a demanding boss (David Hasselhof).

Michael thinks that once he's recognised for his invaluable contribution he'll be made a partner and can lavish time on his foxy wife (Beckinsale) and adorable kiddies.

However, a chance meeting in a hardware shop with mad professor (Walken playing, well, Walken) sees him walking off with the universal remote control - or remote control of the universe.

Now - unfettered by time - he can schedule his own life and programme in the the key milestones while fast-forwarding the nasty bits.

Of course, it doesn't work out that way. The remote starts re-programming according to its memory and Michael is teleported to a future where his family don't even know him.

Then he gets cancer. And has a heart attack. In the rain.

If director Frank Coraci has left it there, this tale would have resolved itself with a bitter twist. But he doesn't. Instead, matters are tied up with most shameful use of the dream sequence cop-out in recent memory.

Sandler's performance is a distasteful composite of the smug and the self-satisfied while Beckinsale's all-too-accommodating wife puts back the women's movement 150 years.

It's a classic case of a nifty idea strangled by lazy playing and pitching for the lowest common denominator.

This comedy just don't click.

Tim Evans