{"id":5941,"date":"2009-09-28T07:09:18","date_gmt":"2009-09-27T23:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=5941"},"modified":"2018-03-14T11:20:32","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T03:20:32","slug":"17-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2009\/09\/28\/17-again\/","title":{"rendered":"17 Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blog-17-a\" 17 Again<\/a><\/em> (2009) \u2013 on rental. The length of my DVD home rental queue fluctuates quite a bit over any given period of time. At times I could have as many as a several dozen films and TV series queued up. At other times, I could be scouring the rental service\u2019s catalog looking for films I\u2019d normally skip but am relooking again only to fill the queue.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s basically how 17 Again<\/em> ended up sent for my viewing. It arrived together with Angelina Jolie\u2019s critically acclaimed Changeling<\/a> <\/em>(to be blogged here as well), and we settled in to give 17 Again<\/em> a go over a dinner of Baby Kailan vegetables with sliced fish fried in oyster sauce.<\/p>\n

The show begins in 1989 with a 17 year old High School student Mike O\u2019Donnell (Zac Efron) playing at an important basketball game, but at a critical moment forsakes the game to be with his girlfriend Scarlet. 20 years later, the older O\u2019Donnell (played now by Matthew Perry) is washed out, pissed over his job progression, distant from his children, and undergoing divorce proceedings with his wife, the same Scarlet. When asked by a mysterious school janitor, he resolutely says he\u2019d want to go back to change his life \u2013 and he gets exactly that opportunity to when he wakes up to find that he\u2019s now in a 17 year old body.<\/p>\n

To say that the film\u2019s premise is like worn underwear is an understatement. The whole theme of body switcheroos and going back-in-time (though 17 Again<\/em> keeps it in the present) has been done countless times already. The film liberally \u2018borrows\u2019 from Back to the Future<\/em>, and parts of Mike\u2019s experience of disembodiment reminded me of 13 Going on 30<\/em> which was even sillier but I enjoyed it a lot more than 17 Again<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If film plagiarism was not already a problem, the film next smacks from front to end of lazy writing \u2013 the story subplots are based entirely on coincidences the film expects you to accept, and when not those subplots are never satisfactorily resolved. Like the romantic subplot between Principal Jane Masterson and Mike\u2019s best friend the nerdy Ned is entirely based on the fat coincidence that Masteron is also a fantasy geek \u2013 which is never explained how that comes about when the two have nothing in common at all<\/em>. Or that how Mike\u2019s diatribe about premarital sex could somehow sway his entire class who knows nothing of him into moralistic rapture. And even if you could buy that, that this newfound standing is never carried through the rest of the film and just forgotten in the film\u2019s rush to get to the next scene.<\/p>\n

Moreover, for a film that is entirely based on the premise that Mike is in a body 20 years younger, you\u2019d expect Efron and Perry to at least look semi-alike- but they are anything but. Not only do the two look physically nothing like the other \u2013 20 years of age separation not withstanding \u2013 they display little consistent mannerisms apart from a reference to his wife Scarlet as \u2018Scar\u2019. It felt as though the film\u2019s writers were banking solely on Zac Efron\u2019s starpower from the successful High School Musical<\/em> series of movies, and made no effort to better write dialog or scenes to make the audience believe that this was indeed an 37 year old man in a 17 year old body.<\/p>\n

Which is all the pity because there are some good individual performances. I\u2019m neutral towards Efron as his pretty boy good looks do nothing for me. But he can act at least, even if the much talked-about basketball tomfoolery scene in the school cafeteria when he\u2019s facing down resident bully Stan is gratuitous and seemingly constructed only to get teenage girls in the audience swooning after Efron.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I like Perry and he\u2019s a natural comic \u2013 but he only shows up in the first 10 and last 5 minutes of the film. Thomas Lennon\u2019s Ned was panned by a lot of film critics, but I enjoyed his low-key performance as the wealthy techno-geek-entrepreneur. And while he has zero chemistry with actress Melora Hardin (Principal Masterson), at least the many references to Lord of the Rings<\/em> in their scenes were cute.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re fine that this film is nothing more than a vehicle for Zac Efron to play pretty boy or you believe a film can be carried on an actor\u2019s good looks, this film will work for you. But forget it if you\u2019re expecting 17 Again<\/em> to be refreshing or even coherent. It was ordinary, formulaic and not very interesting.<\/p>\n

In short, the Kailan was way better.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17 Again (2009) \u2013 on rental. The length of my DVD home rental queue fluctuates quite a bit over any given period of time. At times I could have as many as a several dozen films and TV series queued<\/p>\n

Read More 17 Again<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-home","category-entertainment","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-10-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5941\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}