Second Life

Watching the first half of the new Zac Efron vehicle 17 Again I had two thoughts: First, Efron needs to eat a burger. And second, did Burr Steers really direct this?

Note to self: I shouldn’t be jealous of a 21-year-old movie star. He gets paid millions of dollars to look like fat is just a concept to him. But I could’ve lived without Efron’s extended shirtless opening scene, I really could. I found it titillating to say the least, obviously designed for the tweenagers and the twifties out there, and completely out to make me feel bad about the sympathy weight I’ve gained the last few weeks.

But that’s neither here nor there.

More germane to this review was the realization that the director calling the shots of 17 Again was the same man who helmed the fantastic, if little-seen 2001 gem Igby Goes Down.

Steers, who did not write 17 Again, is saddled with a script that’s lacking in charm, fun, and insight. The movie’s cute, but it’s tame, and if you’ve seen Steer’s work then you probably can tell he’s reeling it in a lot of the time. This is a studio movie – starring a former Disney star/money machine! – so I totally think he agreed to do it in exchange of being able to do something with more bite next.

Preferably something starring the invaluable Leslie Mann (more on her in a sec).

17 Again follows the story of Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry), a thirthysomething former high school basketball star with quite the future ahead of him he forsook to marry his girlfriend and raise their child.

By doing the right thing, Mike gave up on his dreams. His marriage is a failure, his kids (Michelle Trachtenberg and Sterling Knight) think he’s a joke, and his job is going nowhere fast.

When he gets a chance to correct the mistakes of his past and change his life, though, after he’s miraculously transformed back into a teenager (enter Efron), he realizes that perhaps he didn’t have it as bad as he thought he did. The grass is always greener when you’ve through a time warp, I s’ppose….

And, of course, we see young Mike interact with his nerd-in-high-school-but-now-look-at-me-I’m-super-rich BFF (Thomas Lennon), who has to pose as his dad so he can enroll in his kids’ school, and family (which include the glorious, scene-stealing Mann), and figure out why he’s been given the opportunity to live the life he’s been missing out on because he’s spent the last 20 years “in a bad mood.”

The best part of 17 Again is seeing Mann on screen.

Yes, Efron is a beyond-charismatic fella, but Mann’s a star that’s just beginning to blind us all with her light. At last. Every scene she’s in she elevates, which happily also applies to this otherwise forgettable movie.

Note to the movie studio: Seeing Efron eat a sandwich with a caloric count that could satisfy some poor village somewhere’s weekly allowance is not funny. Neither is seeing his young female peers slutty it up but good to get close to him, or seeing him deliver a sanctimonious monologue on why the school bully (who’s dating his daughter) acts the way he does.

This movie’s clearly not for us tweeneverythingelsers. But you feel free now....

My Rating **1/2

Photo: Warner Bros.