17 Again**/****
First off Zac Efron reminds me of Clay Guiga, the UFC fighter so much. They both look like the missing link. Why do people think he is hot?
I figured I owned it to roujin to see this especially since he ranks it higher than
Inglourious Basterds and
The Hurt Locker.
This is not a movie made for me at all, so you can take everything I say with a grain of salt. It's pretty much a wholesale rip off of
Big, just in reverse. It's not a very good movie, but it certainly is not bad. It is actually much better than I imagined.
For some inexplicable reason it is shot with this Vaseline lens that gives it far more visual weight than is warranted for the content. It looks really good. However, the visuals do not match the film. The cinematographer thought he/she was working on a small art house film, not a teen comedy.
You know the entire plot, including how it will end, within 10 minutes of starting the film. The story is touching enough even though it is predictable. The comedy falls rather flat for most of the movie, but there are a couple funny parts.
There are a few horrid parts. The obligatory geek Efron to cool Efron transformation is laughably bad. The worst plot hole is somehow his voice is completely different when he is 17 but his wife cant tell the difference even though his best friend cant tell its him!
Zac Efron is a pretty average actor but certainly serviceable for a film of this kind. I like Matthew Perry and he is pretty good here. In fact, the best parts of the film are before he becomes 17 Again. The highschool part is basically composed of every cliche you can name from every other highschool movie ever made.
In the end this is an ok film for what it is. It's like a zero calorie dessert. It's ok but you would rather have something with some fat in it.