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Unseen Movie Review: The Change-Up

By Rob Dixter Aug 5, 2011, 14:08 GMT

An upstanding, responsible family man switches bodies with his slacker best friend. ...more

Remember The Hogan Family? Me neither. Once Sandy Duncan got a hold of Valerie Harper’s lovable family I gave up. Remember Silver Spoons?

We all wished we had a train that choo chooed around our living room until we turned 9 and realized that train went 4 miles an hour and it would be faster to walk to the fridge to get your dad his beer.

The point of all this is that Jason Bateman has a new movie opening called The Change-Up. Bateman has been around longer than whatever that is that hangs down under Barbara Walters’ neck.

He used to jump from TV show to TV show like Lindsay Lohan from bottle to bottle. He eventually grew up and landed on the critically praised Arrested Development. After that it was off to the races.

Arrested Development was smart. In fact it was so smart no one watched it. But it proved Bateman could do real comedy and not just hit his mark and wait for the canned laughter to kick in. He popped up as a very funny color commentator in Dodgeball and is currently stealing every scene he’s in in Horrible Bosses (luckily he’s not in any scenes with Jennifer Aniston who steals the whole movie).

Ryan Reynolds had a similar start except his began in Canada, so it was a little colder. His first big break was Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place. The show was mediocre except Reynolds definitely stood out. They eventually changed the name of the show to just Two Guys and a Girl, but every time I watched it I was still hungry for pizza.

Many films followed although none were very memorable. He had the starring role in Van Wilder and proved that you could be funny even though the movie wasn’t, and just because you have National Lampoon in your title doesn’t mean it will be seen as a comedy.

Reynolds then bounced around doing leading roles in forgettable films and smaller roles in action like Blade: Trinity and Wolverine. No matter what film he did people saw him as just the right mix of good looking and charming which in case you’re wondering is 65/35.

(Once your charming tips a little higher, say in the 40’s, people see you as smarmy and wonder why you’re always trying to sell them a car even if you’re just in line at McDonald’s.)

He finally hit on something when he made The Proposal with Sandra Bullock. He was funny, charming, good looking and since the film takes place in Alaska his extra layer of blubber that most Canadians are born with came in real handy.

So why would these two guys who are at the apex of their careers and who have both proved they can do funny like accidentally hitting someone in the nuts with a golf swing sign up for a comedy with such a tired old basic premise as body switching?

Even worse than that, they switch bodies after both peeing in a fountain at the same time. That premise is more worn than the hat Pippa had at the royal wedding.

The fact that the movie is rated R helps slightly because most body switching films are bad PG vehicles like Freaky Friday, Like Father Like Son, or 17 Again. Ryan and Jason are funny and I should give them the benefit of the doubt but last time I did that I lent Rip Torn my Subaru and never saw it again.

If only the trailer had some funnier moments in it after they switched bodies I could get on board with some trepidation like the debt deal. But watching Leslie Mann have diarrhea reminds me of the same scene when she throws up on Steve Carell in The 40 Year Old Virgin.

Ryan and Jason might be two of the funniest guys working in film today but the premise to The Change- Up has been used more often than that recycled engagement ring on The Bachelor. What would the sequel to this movie be? They both get telekinetic powers like Scott Baio in Zapped?

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