17 Again

Review by Loc

Zac Efron mania! The birth of a heartthrob happened a couple summers ago when High School Musical surprised the non-Disney Channel public with a smash hit. Efron went on to steal the show in Hairspray, further cementing his status as prettiest pretty boy in town. Then something called Twilight came along, and pale, broody Robert Pattison stole Efron’s show. So sad, but truth be told, RPats owns all females at this moment, and Zac is just a backup. Why do I feel like I’m a writer for Tiger Beat? Why am I even continuing to write about this? Quick hit: the reverse Big squarely designed to be Zac’s star-making vehicle is actually decent enough to cause major disbelief and head scratching from any non-teenage-girl viewer.

Strange, I know, that a Zac Efron/teen comedy isn’t immediately hurl-inducing for anyone over the age of 15. Yet, it seems the producers and directors knew this would be the sentiment from the start and worked extra hard to remove the saccharine overload. Instead, we’re served with a mostly mediocre, cookie-cutter age transformation flick, but that’s a win in its own right. It’s like one of those horrible sports clichés: this is a good defeat, or this is a strong loss, or whatever stupid oxymoron you want to assign it.

Starting with Matthew Perry as a life-long defeated Debbie-downer, 17 Again paints by the numbers to set up the plot. Perry is a flailing pharmaceutical rep, a distant husband, and an absentee dad. Imagine Al Bundy mixed with Chandler from Friends, and you get the basic character. Once his fed-up wife demands a divorce and his kids do everything possible to maintain an icy, vacant relationship, Perry stumbles upon a high school visit and a brief encounter with the mysteriously old, no-named janitor. Cue reminiscing and life full of regrets, cut to weird night time storm and river, lead into Zac Efron now dressed in Matthew Perry’s suit the next morning. Ta-da, you got your age shift, you got your problems-that-need-solving, you got your high school temptations of making better choices, blah blah blah. Like you expected, paint-by-numbers simplicity.

However, 17 Again exhibits just enough self-awareness that it plays off these clichés quite nimbly. First, you have Efron’s best friend, Ned Gold played by one of the cops from Reno 911, acting as the geeky know-it-all guide. Only, he’s really middle-aged, he’s 40 Year Old Virgin loserish, but he’s rich because he’s so geeky. Then you have things like Efron breaking into dance and cheer before the basketball game, only to wake up from his dream. Perhaps the best in-joke of the entire film revolves around one of Zac’s high school pursuers and their reasoning as to why he wants to reject them, that single joke might have made this entire flick worth watching.

And speaking of Efron, kudos to his actual acting talents. No kudus to his basketball talents, because he looks like one of those guys who can sorta play ball, but really tries hard only to be barely average. The fact that they make him a basketball stud just makes you kinda chuckle. But back to his acting skills, there are numerous times where he channels Matthew Perry to a tee, which is fun to notice. Stories were that Perry would recite Zac’s lines, and Zac would use that to model his own performance. Whatever the case, Efron does a very good job of being de-aged Perry throughout the flick.

Overall, 17 Again is mostly reverse-Big starring Zac instead of Tom Hanks. The flick is decent at throwing some adult-targeted jokes into the mix, and the story wasn’t anything horrible. That probably doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but coming from the point of view that this would be a complete brain-deadening two hours, that’s seems pretty good. You’ll find the exact level of humor and enjoyment out of this movie as you would expect, nothing more and nothing less. Out of the 12 years of school, 17 Again avoids detention by reaching 7th grade.