I'm sure I've mentioned before that I'm quite fond of Ryan Reynolds. As such, it was a bit of a no-brainer that I would go and see The Change-Up. Though if I'm honest, it was a similar situation to the previous film I reviewed, I Don't Know How She Does It, as I thought the trailer looked awful.
In the film, Reynolds plays Mitch, an 'actor' who spends the majority of his days smoking weed and playing video games. His dad, Mitch Snr (the underrated Alan Arkin), thinks it's about time he grew up. Mitch's best friend is Dave (Jason Bateman), who by comparison is very grown up. He's about to make partner at his law firm and has a wife and three kids. That is until fate steps in and switches Mitch and Dave into each other's bodies. Dave becomes Mitch and Mitch becomes Dave. Following this unwanted transformation, they must not only find a way to rectify the situation, and fast, but they must also learn how to live each other's lives without raising suspicion of those closest to them.
We've all seen films like this before, Big and Freaky Friday are just two that spring to mind, and as such, this is not a new idea. It's also not a particularly fresh take on the story of body swaps, uptight guy with responsibilities gets to do as he pleases while slacker boy has to knuckle down and prove his worth.
The two leads here are what make a tired situation enjoyable. Both are believable as men with responsibilities and men who'd rather not have grown up at all. It helps that both Reynolds and Bateman have good comic timing, and make for convincing buddies. Fine support is also given by Olivia Wilde and Leslie Mann as Dave's law firm associate and Dave's wife respectively. Leslie Mann in particular kind of overshadows everyone else by putting in a rather moving performance at times.
There are nice little touches in this film which do set it apart from similar films of old, Leslie Mann's performance is one of them. The others are more subtle things like Dave's (and in turn Mitch as Dave) relationship with his daughter, which is a nice side story. As is Mitch's (and in turn Dave as Mitch) relationship with his father. Having said that, there are also things which set this film apart in a bad way. Like the amount of breasts you see in this film. I'm no prude but it honestly felt like all of the women in this film were only allowed in it if they were naked at least once. It was a little more flesh than I personally thought was necessary but I'm sure any men reading this will disagree. There were also slightly too many poo jokes or poo references for my liking. We're not 5 and that's when poo jokes stopped being funny.
So to sum up, the film doesn't really shed any new light on an old story but it's entertaining nonetheless. 6.5 out of 10.
Viewing Date ~ 18th September 2011
UK Release Date ~ 16th September 2011
Cast Overview:
Ryan Reynolds ~ Mitch Planko
Jason Bateman ~ Dave Lockwood
Leslie Mann ~ Jamie Lockwood
Olivia Wilde ~ Sabrina McArdle
Alan Arkin ~ Mitch Planko Snr
Director ~ David Dobkin
Writer(s) ~ Jon Lucas and Scott Moore
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