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What it's about:
Best friends Dave (Jason Bateman) and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) find that they have swapped bodies after urinating in a 'magical' fountain during a drunken night out.
What we thought:
What a sad, sad state comedy - or at least Hollywood's idea of it - must be in if the idea of a body swap still sends the studio execs into fits of giggles. Even worse is that capable actors like Jason Bateman, Ryan Reynolds and - oh, the inhumanity - Alan Arkin are being used to this pointless end. Shenanigans.
Taking its tired, over-familiar cues from Freaky Friday and The Hangover movies, The Change-Up takes the route of least resistance and doesn't offer up anything new or particularly exciting – except, perhaps, a glimpse of Leslie Mann's oddly pert breasts.
Dave and Mitch may be best buds, but they are at completely different places in their lives. Dave's an ambitious lawyer with partnership at his firm in his sights as well as baby twins and a hot wife at home. Mitch is a single, sometime-actor with an assortment of random hook-ups to keep him warm at night.
The movie, of course, needs these opposites to make the body swap worthwhile, as it were, but why these guys, as portrayed by Bateman and Reynolds, would even be "best friends since third grade" requires a suspension of disbelief that's just a step too far beyond even the body swap conceit.
For starters, Reynolds is 34 years old while Bateman is seven years older, though onscreen the age difference is much more remarkable.
What the makers of The Change-Up would also like you to know upfront is that this is a dirty, dirty movie. There are, as mentioned before, boobs (!), lots of F-bombs and poop 'n hairy balls jokes.
The opening 15 minutes are filled with out-there gags that fans of Leon Schuster, Tyler Perry and Adam Sandler will guffaw through with much glee. But the fun soon runs its course as the writing starts to settle into its workman-like rhythm. Alan Arkin is given a nothing role as Mitch's hard-done-by father. The strained relations between father and son is supposedly the obstacle to Mitch's happiness, but the lack of context for this state of affairs isn't even supplemented by anything resembling comedy.
As Dave finds himself trapped in Mitch's more lithe meatsuit, he is able to live out his fantasy of freeing himself from family obligations and perhaps hooking up with his sexy colleague Sabrina (played by Olivia Wilde), though its odd to see the youngest, hottest members of the cast strike a blank in the chemistry department.
No matter what your comedy inclinations are, you will find at least one thing to chortle at during The Change-Up - though you may feel guilty about it later.
This is uninspired, opportunistic crass comedy of the laziest kind. See it if you really couldn't care less about where your money goes.
Best friends Dave (Jason Bateman) and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) find that they have swapped bodies after urinating in a 'magical' fountain during a drunken night out.
What we thought:
What a sad, sad state comedy - or at least Hollywood's idea of it - must be in if the idea of a body swap still sends the studio execs into fits of giggles. Even worse is that capable actors like Jason Bateman, Ryan Reynolds and - oh, the inhumanity - Alan Arkin are being used to this pointless end. Shenanigans.
Taking its tired, over-familiar cues from Freaky Friday and The Hangover movies, The Change-Up takes the route of least resistance and doesn't offer up anything new or particularly exciting – except, perhaps, a glimpse of Leslie Mann's oddly pert breasts.
Dave and Mitch may be best buds, but they are at completely different places in their lives. Dave's an ambitious lawyer with partnership at his firm in his sights as well as baby twins and a hot wife at home. Mitch is a single, sometime-actor with an assortment of random hook-ups to keep him warm at night.
The movie, of course, needs these opposites to make the body swap worthwhile, as it were, but why these guys, as portrayed by Bateman and Reynolds, would even be "best friends since third grade" requires a suspension of disbelief that's just a step too far beyond even the body swap conceit.
For starters, Reynolds is 34 years old while Bateman is seven years older, though onscreen the age difference is much more remarkable.
What the makers of The Change-Up would also like you to know upfront is that this is a dirty, dirty movie. There are, as mentioned before, boobs (!), lots of F-bombs and poop 'n hairy balls jokes.
The opening 15 minutes are filled with out-there gags that fans of Leon Schuster, Tyler Perry and Adam Sandler will guffaw through with much glee. But the fun soon runs its course as the writing starts to settle into its workman-like rhythm. Alan Arkin is given a nothing role as Mitch's hard-done-by father. The strained relations between father and son is supposedly the obstacle to Mitch's happiness, but the lack of context for this state of affairs isn't even supplemented by anything resembling comedy.
As Dave finds himself trapped in Mitch's more lithe meatsuit, he is able to live out his fantasy of freeing himself from family obligations and perhaps hooking up with his sexy colleague Sabrina (played by Olivia Wilde), though its odd to see the youngest, hottest members of the cast strike a blank in the chemistry department.
No matter what your comedy inclinations are, you will find at least one thing to chortle at during The Change-Up - though you may feel guilty about it later.
This is uninspired, opportunistic crass comedy of the laziest kind. See it if you really couldn't care less about where your money goes.
