Just by merely writing about this movie I risk losing any movie cred that I may have had. However, I will admit that I did watch it, and it was actually pretty good. I had very low expectations going in. I assumed Zac Efron was going to give an over-exaggerated annoying performance. I have never seen any of the High School Musical movies, but I can just imagine what they were like, and I didn't figure he had the skill to bring anything else to the table. However, I was completely wrong. He does a great job in this film. His performance is far and away the best thing about the movie. 17 Again could have been really horrible if the lead actor did a poor job, but Efron made it entertaining, and enjoyable to watch. He was really engaging, and he earned a lot more of my respect that I thought he would. 17 Again is the pretty much the opposite of the movie Big. Here, a full grown adult goes back into the body of his 17 year old self. He of course befriends his own son and gives him a confidence boost, as well as inadvertently makes his own daughter get a crush on him... all the while trying to keep his wife from divorcing him, which results in a series of uncomfortably creepy scenes. I was impressed that they put those scenes in the movie. Most age-change movies wont touch that stuff, but this movie did its best to make it believable, while not crossing the line into pedophilia. This is still a pretty corny movie, with a lot of comedy moments that didn't really work for me. However, it doesn't pretend to be a serious film with some important message. 17 Again was actually really fun, and I am glad I watched it. It exceeded my expectations by far. I would even recommend this to people as long as they don't expect too much out of it.
-deric
Filed Under: Comedy