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| Released: |
2009 |
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| Genre: |
ROMANCE
COMEDY
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| Origin: |
US |
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| Colour: |
C |
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| Length: |
102 |
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Teen comedy that’s canny as well as cute. |
Reviewed by Chris Tookey
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This sweet comedy that will go down a storm with teenage girls. That’s partly because teen heart-throb Zac Efron (from High School Musical, pictured) is the lead. Director Burr Steers has him strip off to his tanned, toned torso for the opening scene – a sure sign that Mr Steers knows his audience. However, this heart-warming feelgood film is proficient, funny and sensible enough to entertain even those for whom 17 is just a distant memory.
It’s a body-swap comedy in the tradition of Big and Freaky Friday. Matthew Perry (still searching for his first big hit since Friends) plays Mike O’Donnell, a disgruntled man in his forties, who’s had to move in to the sci-fi-and-fantasy-memorabilia-stuffed pad of his best friend Ned (Thomas Lennon), a high school geek turned software billionaire.
Poor old Mike has just lost his job, can’t communicate with his teenage son and daughter (Sterling Knight, Michelle Trachtenberg) and is about to be divorced by wife Scarlet (Leslie Mann).
That’s because he fairly obviously blames her for ruining his life. Mike used to look like Zac Efron and was the star of his school basketball team, but his teenage sweetheart Scarlet (then played by Allison Miller) stopped him going to college by announcing she was pregnant.
For unexplained reasons, middle-aged Mike is given the chance to relive his days as a 17 year-old and – with Ned posing as his father - enrols at his old high school. Mike (now played by Efron) makes friends with his own son and offers fatherly advice to his daughter, who he is horrified to find is sexually active. Mike is almost as horrified when his own daughter makes advances to him, and he finds himself re-attracted to his wife, who is now embarrassingly his best friend’s mom.
Efron is good at light comedy, and very much the 21st century answer to Michael J. Fox – nice, good-looking in a David Cassidy way, and sexually non-threatening. He’s funny as he dispenses mature, sensible and distinctly conservative advice. Jason Filardi’s screenplay is surprisingly wise at the way it shows the mixture of derision and respect which greets old-young Mike’s pronouncements on life, love and sexual abstinence.
Much of this – including the hints of incestuous longing - is reminiscent of Back to the Future. That’s not to the new movie’s advantage. Director Steers is no great stylist, and Filardi’s script could have done with more gags.
A romantic subplot between Thomas Lennon and Jane Masterson, as the school principal, makes for sticky moments early on, though it works much better towards the end, as they discover their mutual dorkiness.
As high school comedy, this lacks the wit and invention of 10 Things I Hate About You or Clueless. It never strays outside Hollywood formula. Still, it is generous-spirited entertainment, and the pace never flags.
When I left, some teenage girls came up to me and demanded I give the film five stars. Sorry, ladies - it isn’t worth that much unless you’re seriously smitten with Mr Efron. Still, they clearly liked the picture; and, though I wasn’t expecting to enjoy 17 Again, I did too.
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, Leslie Mann
