17 Again: A Second-Rate Comedy review

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Just in case anyone forgot he's the manufactured drone of the High School Musical movies, Zac Efron stars in 17 Again as a high school basketballer and the film opens with his getting involved in the dance routine of the cheerleading squad. Except that he isn't really a teenager, his Mike O'Donnell is his adult self (Matthew Perry) transplanted back into his teenaged body courtesy of a Santa double janitor, his newly regained youthful appearance -- a far cry from the unhappy life he fashioned for himself through adulthood -- allowing him a glimpse into the daily lives of his high schooler offspring (Michelle Trachtenberg and Sterling Knight). And he doesn't like what he sees. Maggie's loved up with the school prick and Alex's not part of the basketball team but the kid they pick on. There's only one way for Mike to change things: He's gotta go with the status quo, attempting to blend into the high school setting so that he may change things for the better and see his kids alright. Meanwhile, he begins to find his love for soon-to-be-divorced wife Scarlett (Leslie Mann) rekindle.

17 Again is less terrible than one would expect from a film whose primary selling point is the fact that its lead star is also the star of Disney's cruddy High School Musical, but it's still bad. Screenwriter Jason Filardi has constructed a script as by-the-numbers as a teen film charting Freaky Friday territory can be, while director Burr Steers fails to craft any shots the viewer can grasp onto. Steers just seems to have happened by the set with a camera and taken it from there. Distraught his life hasn't taken him in the directions he had hoped following his ditching of basketball for love-of-his-life Scarlett, Mike's journey backwards through the years is, in his esteemed opinion, a chance to live it up in his younger body and again find that drive he once had long before working long hours for an unappreciative company. However, one knows from the offset the film has other plans for him, and the story arc is about as predictable and crass as one could imagine, peaking with scenes such as one where Mike calls out the school bully and firebombing with the inane relationship struggles of Mike's best friend, the nerdy Ned (Thomas Lennon). Here's a movie that, in its adherence to broad stereotypical characters and conflicting messages, fails to surprise on any level apart from not being all-out repellent.

If the majority of the audience (read: teenage girls) are there for Efron in his first real star vehicle, they'll probably get what they want from the film. Efron oversells just about every emotion but is funny in a couple of situations, though his calling someone else a tool probably isn't supposed to make you laugh in the way it does. The co-stars, meanwhile, are as one would expect from a second-rate comedy drama, putting a brave face on things as they basically go through the motions. Of them all, Michelle Trachtenberg should probably focus in starring in more films to the dramatic degree of Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin, because she's the only player you can suggest is truly above the material -- though Matthew Perry shows up and does his Numb routine to a bizarrely endearing effect.

Beginning and ending at a basketball game, 17 Again shows less growth than its main character does, unambitiously pandering to pre-conceived ideas of how everything will turn out and, thus, giving the viewer little reward besides the same synthetic drama teen-targeted films usually give you. It offers up penis jokes, incest jokes and name jokes (how hilarious was it that Mike intentionally pronounced that woman Naomi's name wrong? Oh right...) but few of them are funny while its portrayal of its teenage characters (either whores, pricks or dorks) is as offensive and -- in Mike's lectures to his virginal daughter against putting out for an old guy contrasted with his encouragement of his son to move in on a eligible bachelorette himself reveals a gross double-standard either in Mike's parenting or the film's outlook -- off-putting. In the end you're left wishing you'd spent your money on another, better movie. You know, one that actually has a pulse.

[rating:2]