What we get from David Dobkin, Jon Lucas, and Scott Moore is an indecisive comedy, which takes too long to reach its obvious conclusion.
We meet Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman), in the wee hours of the morning. Crying children startle him awake, and he’s forced from his comfortable bed to change them, literally taking crap in the process. Projectile crap. Gross. In this scene, we see the film’s first type of humor: raunchy. It’s just one of a myriad.
Dave heads to work, where he’s a promising attorney, on the verge of becoming a partner at his firm. He gets a call from his unemployed actor pal Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds), reminding him of their hang out session. Mitch smokes pot all day and has meaningless sex at night, so he hasn’t forgotten. Dave on the other hand has, but somehow convinces his wife to let him go out.
Mitch and Dave head to the local watering hole, where Mitch regales Dave with his sexual conquests. Here’s where the film shifts from raunchy humor to buddy comedy, as the two become inebriated.
They drunkenly stumble out of the bar, expressing jealousy of one another; Mitch envies the stability of Dave’s family, while Dave longs for Mitch’s free time. The pair stops to take a whiz in a park fountain, where they wish aloud that they could have each other’s lives.
In the morning, they unwittingly get their desire, as Dave wakes up in Mitch’s body and vice versa. Now the humor focuses on body swapping, as they try to deal with the complications of reversing roles. Dave has an important merger that he has to entrust to Mitch, while Mitch has a big acting gig, Dave must handle.
When Dave’s wife (Leslie Mann) has to put up with Mitch’s antics though, she confides to Dave (in Mitch’s body), that her marriage has been on the rocks. Hearing the news, gives Dave serious reality check, since he thought everything was just dandy. And so, “The Change-Up” transitions into a fourth type of comedy: romantic, further diluting the jokes.
You’ve probably heard the expression, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” Everything looks better from another person’s perspective, until you’re actually standing in their shoes. Then you see that the person has just as many problems, but they are just different ones. Ultimately you should be thankful for what you have. This theme sits at the core of body swapping movies, and “The Change-Up” is no different.
One of the two major problems in “The Change-Up” is that it takes way too long for Dave and Mitch to realize they need to swap back. In an effort to equally show both perspectives, the writers unnecessarily drag out the length of the film. David Dobkin could have used montages to cut down the middle portions leading into the last act.
The second critical issue with the film is its variation in comedic styles. Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds give completely believable performances once they swap bodies. There’s even a couple of hilarious scenes, like the one where Reynolds (Bateman) teaches Bateman (Reynolds) tips and tricks on being a grown up. But because the “Change-Up” lacks a uniform type of humor, dabbling in raunchy, buddy, body swapping, and romantic comedy, it fails to lock capture any single audience.
My Grade: C
View Comments (1)
This is a disgusting film that may actually have some people gagging like crazy. It barely avoided getting slapped with an NC-17 rating, so it might be a struggle for some to get past all the envelope-pushing. But as gross as it can sometimes get, we were laughing too darn hard at it all to really pay that any mind. Nice Review! Check out mine when you can!