17 Again 回到17歲

Screenwriter Jason Filardi ("Bringing Down the House") has combined a script from a number of similar comedies in the body-swap genre, such as "Big," "13 Going on 30" and "Freaky Friday." It works better than you might imagine at times, but stumbles awkwardly other times. The unevenness in the writing is matched by directorial overkill in certain comic sequences.

Warner Bros. has achieved high awareness for this tween comedy, starring Zac Efron from New Line. The film has mid-range potential for opening as number one in the weekly box office.

Why the filmmakers believe college basketball and parenthood are mutually exclusive is unclear — are they aware how many student-athletes have families? — but anyway, it's 20 years later and Mike, played by Matthew Perry, is a walking train wreck. His kids hate him, his wife is divorcing him and his job disappears. Only his best friend, former school nerd-turned-software tycoon Ned, played by Thomas Lennon, can tolerate his company.

Along comes, as happens in "do-over"" movies, a mystical figure, invariably in a white beard, who grants the downfallen hero his request — in this instance, to be 17 again. The nice twist to Mike becoming a "fake teen" is that this situation doesn't so much give him a chance to re-shape his life as to help out his daughter and son. He can dispense advice and guidance from the perspective of an adult but in the guise of a schoolmate.

Sequences involve a school bully. The father discovers a classmate terrorizing his son but dating his daughter! — and his wife, now 20 years older than him, clicks pretty well with him. But the film gets into tonal problems when Steers and Filardi feel the need for the kind of exaggeration believed necessary for teen comedies. Lennon's extreme Clay Aiken-style geek would be funny in the right film, but here his performance jars. There is also too much sentimentality thrown in, as if the filmmakers don't trust their young audience to get the message.

Zac Efron does a fine job in letting the older man seep through his boyish exterior. As the siblings, Sterling Knight and Michelle Trachtenberg each have moments when they shine, especially when the daughter starts to think her father is attractive, not realizing, of course, that he is her father. Leslie Mann, as always, is very funny and gets to put an edge of vulnerability into her performance.

Production values are mediocre at best with an unusually loud music soundtrack obliterating much of the dialogue. In this high school, no one ever goes to class, the kids are too old and Efron is too short for a basketball star, but otherwise,"17 Again" is the epitome of realism.

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