17 Again

Movie, 2009, PG-13

Premise - A middle-aged man facing a divorce feels like he may regret his life decision to abandon his future and help his high school sweetheart raise a child. Revisiting the halls of his high school, his glory days, he meets a strange janitor who transforms him into a teenager once more so that he can re-discover his true path.


Review - I looooooved Zac Efron. I still do, but my love for Zac Efron is for THIS particular Zac Efron, before he filled out too much and when he still had that Bieber-y hair. This film was such an exciting breakthrough, to see him outside of Disney Channel with the permission to say words like "dick." They still capitalized on his Troy Bolton persona, for sure, making him a high school basketball star. There were scenes where they absolutely shoved this in people's faces, as he did a bunch of nifty little tricks with the basketball. The filmmakers definitely knew exactly how to please his wide fanbase. I mean, I was happy.

Looking now at the rotten tomatoes score it's probably in the 50's or so, but this is where nostalgia plays a huge factor. I will always love this movie. Teen flicks, particularly ones in the romantic, comedy, or rom-com genre, were my drug of choice. Put Zac Efron in it and I'm there.

I can still nitpick at the film now as an adult though. Mike/Mark's kids are supposed to be living lives that represents every dad's worst fear - his popular daughter is recklessly dating a badboy, and his son is a loser virgin being bullied. These are very gendered and heteronormative fears. He also has a very conservative view on sex as he preaches abstinence to the health class. I kind of get it, especially because it's presented in a bit of a humorous way, and because he is literally the guy who fathered child in high school and doesn't want people to make the same mistakes. But still, a bit traditional. I think the film redeemed itself though in that one scene where Maggie was making sexual advancements at her own father without even realizing. There's generally a lot of weird incest and/or cougar/borderline pedophilic jokes that they are able to get away with because of the uniquely bizarre scenario. Very uncomfortable but I loved that comedy.

The reason most of these kinds of films get criticized is the suspension of disbelief... HOW did this magical transformation happen, and WHY did he and his friend buy into it so quickly? I love the way this film solves the dilemma though by making his best friend a huge fantasy nerd. He's able to conceptualize the magic and understand its purpose by looking to other pieces of fiction, and organizing them by their transformation stories.

The friend was also just a fun character to have around. I absolutely love that actor, Thomas Lennon. I think he's hilarious. The sexual harassment was definitely bothersome, though. They tried to reconcile it by making the principal receiving the sexual harassment secretly a super-nerd who was also into it, but that sort of sends the wrong message about the benefits of these kinds of advancements. Also, as a nerd myself, some of the nerd references were just dumb. Too much fandom crossover, and knowing that Gandalf the Grey comes back as Gandalf the White in Two Towers is not something you need to be a nerd to know. I haven't even seen Lord of the Rings and I know that. Even if she was relatively nerdy, you have to be on a whole separate level to speak Elf, so I don't know how they got to that assumption that they were on the same extreme level of nerd so quickly. Broke my suspension of disbelief for sure, but that's true of anybody who knows too much about a particular subject that's being thrown into a film. When films make psychology references that are incorrect, that also stands out to me more than others.

I actually think the story is great. There's a very clean narrative happening here, with very clear temporal parallels. I loved the scene where Mike/Mark is in the exact same situation he was in high school, dribbling the ball, watching Scar walk away, and realizes that he didn't make a mistake the first time. Given the chance to do it all over again, he still chooses Scar over basketball because his true mistake was forgetting that he did it right to begin with.  (94/100)

Quote - "A classic transformation story"

What to watch for - Oh man, this was Zac Efron near his peak. That swishy hair, the leather jacket... dear lord I was in love in 2009 and still am now.

If you enjoyed this movie, I'd recommend 13 Going on 30!

Directed by Burr Steers
Distributed by New Line Cinema