Two Roads Diverged
Written: Jun 15 '09
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Interesting characters.
Cons: Teenagers look different when they've grown up
The Bottom Line: Better than the run of the mill live-it-over movie. Can also work as a date movie.
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| topreviewerman's Full Review: 17 Again |
Seventeen Again takes us back to 1989 when Mike O'Donnell (Zac Efron) is on his game playing for the Hayden High School Warriors, the basketball scouts being in town with their college scholarship. He's so hot he seamlessly joins the cheerleaders' chant. What could go wrong? But things aren't as copacetic with his "stone cold fox" of a girlfriend as he would like, and the only way to secure his future with her is to throw in the towel at the game.
Eighteen years later the future is here. He's worked all that time for his cousin's pharmaceutical firm, one that's now trying to minimize a side effect as if a grotesque physical transformation is desirable, easing us into a transformation plot, but not him into a promotion. He's spent the last 18 years whining to his wife Scarlet (Leslie Mann) that he's extremely disappointed with his life, so she's about to do him a favor and divorce him. She starts by digging up the back yard to make a garden, and prepare us for a transformation plot.
The school janitor catches him contemplating the trophy case and with a smile and a vortex transforms him into age 17 again. Mike, looking 17, goes to his friend Ned (Thomas Lennon) for a hand. Ned is rich and nerdy. He got rich by being smart, and they are smart enough to figure out the nature of Mike's transformation by laying out on the table all the books and magazine articles they could find on the subject—and there were a lot. Their conclusion is it's a case of "spirit guide transformation magic" associated with the janitor.
After some convincing Ned enrolls Mike as his son in high school. The story is that Mike was born out of wedlock, and since no woman would ever admit having sex with Ned, that explains why no one's ever heard of Mike before. Ned is that weird. In fact Ned's transformation from Gandalf the Gray to Gandalf the White is so strange that Mike's transformation to 17 seems natural by comparison. And the hanging garden turns out not half bad. So we end up pretty comfortable with transformed Mike.
At high school Mike has a lopsided relationship with his children, and as their friend from school, with his wife. He joins the basketball team, the college scouts come to watch him, and he gets his big chance. We all smile, but not as much as the janitor.
In case my reader is put off by some weird spiritual transformation no matter how much it's sugar coated, I think he might still enjoy this movie because of how well it portrays the Protestant work ethic (see 1 Thes. 4:3-12). Father/student Mike in the classroom with his daughter gives a rousing speech encouraging them to follow the school's official abstinence policy, affecting the voluntary condom handout. He develops a real brotherly love for his son helping his game. And Ned shows how a little bit of scratch can make up for a whole lot of weird, laptops for every student, say, being better than unethical claims to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. If you can suspend disbelief for the 17-again transformation, your Protestant work ethic is given half a chance.
I enjoyed this movie, but then I like all kinds of movie magic just so long as it doesn't involve werewolves. If you like these transformation movies, I see no reason why you wouldn't like "17 Again," and if you don't like them, you still might like it. At least it won't be the movie's fault for lack of trying.
If you pay attention to the numbers of the basketball players, you may notice that Mike is number 0. Zero is a special number, one could almost say magical, the properties of which any nerd can explain to you if you remember to bring one along. Sometimes there's more to them than meets the eye.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Feel-good Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Cast
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Epinions.com ID:
topreviewerman
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Member: Earl Gosnell
Location: Eugene, OR
Reviews written: 82
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
BSEE, U. of Cincinnati. Ordained minister, United Congregation of Friends. Poet Laureate, Longfellow, Colorado.
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