{"id":1674,"date":"2011-08-05T07:38:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-05T14:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1674"},"modified":"2011-08-05T07:38:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T14:38:00","slug":"review-the-change-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=1674","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Change-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Bathroom humor\u2026 \u201cThe Change-Up\u201d resorts to bathroom humor by literally putting characters on the toilet in a weak attempt to outdo the recent trend in R-rated comedy. And the result is pretty stinky.<\/p>\n

In \u201cThe Change-Up,\u201d two childhood chums gaze over the fence at the other where they believe the grass is always greener. Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds) is a wannabe actor living the shameless life of a bachelor. He shares crazy stories of his sexual conquests with best friend Dave Lockwood, a boring married attorney and father of three. Mitch colorfully describes the various positions employed in the bedroom telling Dave he\u2019s even done something called \u201cthe Arseno Hall.\u201d Such chatty dialogue is worth a laugh mainly because we don\u2019t have to sit through the act described. But the makers of \u201cThe Change-Up\u201d take things much farther.<\/p>\n

We meet Dave\u2019s beautiful wife Jamie (Leslie Mann), who is struggling with Dave\u2019s workaholic lifestyle. The couple has twins and an older daughter. In the film\u2019s ridiculous opening scene, while Dave is changing a diaper, one of the children has an accident that lands on Dave\u2019s face and into his mouth. The scene continues and Dave is shown wearing the accident while sitting on his couch feeding his children. Such foolishness sets the tone for the low end fantasy that is to follow.<\/p>\n

We know the body-switch comedy drill. After a night of heavy drinking, Mitch and Dave relieve themselves in a park fountain. They playfully wish aloud that they had the other\u2019s life. And they awake the next morning in the body of the other. Mitch is now Dave and Dave\u2019s now Mitch.<\/p>\n

It is as if the writers of this film, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who were responsible for \u201cThe Hangover\u201d and its sequel, are afraid to give us authentic funny moments that parents really experience. Instead we get gonzo sequences aimed at a broad spectrum of viewers. For example, one of the twins repeatedly bangs his head, in a fast and violent way, against his crib. It evokes a chuckle but then it just seems weird. And the movie is filled with this kind of non-sense. Parents and adults in general deserve better, smarter R-rated comedies that tweak but don\u2019t utterly pervert the things we all experience.<\/p>\n

It is not as if I\u2019m expecting a bitter dose of reality in a body-switch comedy, but it\u2019s really hard to relate to any of the characters in \u201cThe Change-Up.\u201d And that is even true when they are sitting on the commode. Poor Leslie Mann is a really good sport here and in one thankless scene bares all only to end up in the bathroom. This theme is continued throughout the film. The filmmakers here seem to think that they can refresh the once wholesome fantastical plot device that was popularized back in 1976 with Jodie Foster in Disney\u2019s \u201cFreaky Friday\u201d by branding it with R-rated crudeness. And that approach could have worked had the humor been more grounded.<\/p>\n

On a personal note, \u201cThe Change-Up\u201d was shot in Atlanta, and I live in the same metro area. It is great to see Atlanta play itself and the movie showcases the city well. It\u2019s too bad that the movie wallows in low humor and can\u2019t redeem itself with winning performances and clever plot twists.<\/p>\n

One of the joys of the body-switch comedy over the years has been watching two talented actors take on the personality of the other when the change over takes place. Perhaps my favorite example is 1997\u2019s \u201cFace\/Off.\u201d The film and the action sequences were typical stylized John Woo, but the movie worked because watching John Travolta become Nicolas Cage and vice versa was so entertaining. Both actors studied one another\u2019s mannerisms and traits mimicking them seamlessly. Such great work didn\u2019t go unnoticed and the derivative \u201cFace\/Off\u201d received solid reviews and delivered at the box office. In \u201cThe Change-Up\u201d two popular and talented actors, Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds, try on the switch in the most uninspired way. The personalities are marked by one character blurting out a series of expletives and the other, well, it\u2019s really hard to tell them apart. Other than the R-rated language, there are few personality traits that seem to be transferred from one character to the other.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Change-Up\u201d blatantly tries to one-up the other irreverent comedies of late and proves that change isn\u2019t always a good thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crudeness not becoming…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","has-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1678,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1674\/revisions\/1678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}