Thursday, Dec. 08, 2011

The Change-Up

To put it lightly, we’ve already seen this story concept by the bucket-load – a freak occurrence happens and two very different people switch bodies and have to learn how to cope with walking in another person’s shoes until they become better human beings...the end. Here’s a short list of the flops using this concept in the last decade – “Freaky Friday,” “Monkeybone,” “17 Again”, “The Hot Chick” and “Down to Earth.” Yes, I know a steaming pile of cinematic gold. But none of those films were written by the guys who penned “The Hangover” or directed by the guy who brought you “Wedding Crashers.” “The Change-Up” is everything you’d expect from three creators of recent, cornerstone comedies coming together to make a movie about a topic that’s been done to death…they flip it on its ear. Oh, there’s still the learning experience of walking in another man’s shoes. But Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds step in puddles of raunchy situations and trip over heaps of awkwardly hilarious scenes along the way. This film earns its R-rating – worth a watch.