It's all been done before. Little kid becomes Big kid. Big adult become little adult. Parents and teens swap bodies. Geeky little girls become glamorous and 30. And us moviegoers just swallow it with a grain of salt that with some voodoo magic old can become young again or Vice Versa. Yawn...
Actually, okay, so I love Big. And what if 13 Going on 30 made me laugh? And fuck, Judge Reinhold and Fred Savage trading bodies? Hi-lar-i-ous. I'm usually the audience member pointing out the glaring plot holes in a movie, and for me to suspend disbelief in some sort of weird, Freaky occurrence takes a great cast. And, I can't believe I'm gonna say this but, Zac Efron made me believe...just a little.
17 Again (not to be confused with Seventeen Again starring the Mowry siblings) opens in 1989, when Mike O'Donnell's future was starting to blossom. He's the star basketball player (does Efron have a contract that he can only play basketball in film? I swear I thought he was gonna starting singing "Get'cha head in the game" at any moment), he has a hot girlfriend, he's about to get a scholarship, and he's a genuinely nice dude who helps out his nerdy BFF. So, when his girlfriend drops the bomb she's preggers, Mike walks out of his clutch game, blows his scholarship, and ruins his life by getting married all too young.
Flash forward 18 years and Mike is now Matthew Perry (yeah, right...), whose wife (Leslie Mann) is divorcing him, his kids (Michelle Trachtenberg and Sterling Knight) hate him, and he's losing his job. Sounds like somebody needs a do-over, no? Cue a weird, old janitor and a Twilight Zone-y vortex, and Perry becomes Efron, determined to do things differently. Cue awkward adult becoming teen scenes.
Mike enlists his nerdy buddy, Ned (Thomas Lennon), now a multi-millionaire to play his "dad," which he wholeheartedly does when he checks out the hot principal (Melora Hardin).
Now, with any Body Swapping Movies, the first 30 minutes or so just build up the plot, and 17 Again meanders a bit during this time. All the 'tweens in the audience were bored stiff with tales of divorce and life ruining. It's a bit of a drag, indeed. And then Efron shows up with his Efron abs sans the singing and dancing cause, you know, he's a serious actor, and the movie becomes fun. I'm not saying 17 Again is rewriting the BSM genre--it is by no means, but with a charming cast of Efron, Mann, Lennon, and Hardin, the film is pretty easy to sit through. Sure, it's a bit creepy to watch young Mike pine over his now 40 year old wife, but once you get past that, the film is wholly watchable. You might just need some ear plugs for when the young ladies start to swoon as Efron strolls through school in tight jeans and a leather jacket.
Also, all you Star Wars and LOTR nerds out there, you're in for a treat when Ned and the principal have an odd but wonderfully funny first date. Is it weird that some of the funniest lines of 17 Again are spoken in Elvish?
--Darcie Duttweiler
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