17 Again [Blu-ray]

17 Again [Blu-ray] Review

17 Again [Blu-ray] Feature

• No one would call Mike ODonnell the perfect husband or father least of all his wife or kids but hes about to get the second chance hes always wished for. When Mike is passed over for a promotion at work, he blames his family for his lack of success: if only he could do it all again and do it right this time, then everything would be different. When Mike wakes up the next morning, hes no longer his

Zac Efron breaks free of his High School Musical legacy with 17 Again, leading a pack of fine comic actors in a body-switching comedy that freshens the genre with good ideas. Efron plays Mike, a high-school basketball star who blows a college scholarship in 1989 to marry his sweetheart. Cut to 2009, and late-30s Mike (Matthew Perry) is a sour guy passed over for a promotion and feeling estranged from that wife, Scarlett (Leslie Mann), and teen kids (Michelle Trachtenberg, Sterling Knight). Magical intervention causes Mike to turn 17 once more--albeit in the present--and tackle his failures with a fresh start. As the hot new kid in his children's high school, Mike proves a better father to them as their peer than as a man, while Scarlett sees in him everything that attracted her to her husband two decades before. Writer Jason Filardi and director Burr Steers demonstrate an imaginative and supple wit in such half-expected scenes as Mike's confrontations with a school bully and his unsuspecting daughter's flirtations with him. But it's Efron who carries some truly delicate moments and proves to be genuinely sympathetic when emotions get thick and heavy. Thomas Lennon is also entertaining as a wealthy Star Wars nerd who pretends to be Mike's father, but his slightly excessive screen time suggests the filmmakers weren't entirely sure Efron could do what needed to be done. If so, they were mistaken. --Tom Keogh If you somehow had the chance, would you do your life over? Thirtysomething Mike O’Donnell would. Then one mysteriously magical moment, Mike gets his chance. He’s suddenly back at Hayden High where he’s the star of the basketball team, a total hottie, and a classmate to his own teenage kids…which gives Mike a chance to go from not-so-good dad to really cool friend. Zac Efron (Hairspray, the High School Musical movies) and Matthew Perry (Friends) are 17 Again and fabulously funny as the younger and older Mike in a good-time time-warp comedy that proves the best year of your life is the one you’re living right now.