A magical fountain causes two friends to swap bodies, and live out their fantasies of experiencing the other’s life.
Nobody sprained any brain muscles coming up with this plot - two guys, one married the other single, end up swapping lives and realise life is not so sweet on the other side. Ryan Reynolds plays Mitch, an uncouth layabout actor, whose approach to meeting women to have sex with knows no bounds (he even attends single-mothers-to-be meetings). Whilst Jason Bateman plays Dave, a successful lawyer and family man, who has the picture perfect life, but desires a lifestyle like Mitch where he can sleep around and have no responsibilities.
The result is a foul-mouthed comedy, with some gross-out moments thrown in, and no real direction in sight. As the two buddies attempt damage control in each other’s lives, they are also hunting down the fountain, which has moved, in the hope to reverse the change.
Films with out-of-body experiences (17Again, Freaky Friday et al), are always filled with unanswered questions, but The Change-Up doesn’t even attempt to explain the phenomenon, and instead focuses on the ultra-tired notion that all men care about is sex, and are willing to sacrifice any shred of decency to get it. In fact, the film’s depiction of the sexes is quite offensive - men are shown to be shallow morons, whilst women are depicted as helpless servants, only there to aid their male counterparts.
These types of movies are what they are, simply comedies reliant on swear words and pretty people. Expect nothing more, and the Change-Up will be an entertaining yarn for just over an hour and a half.
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