17 AGAIN

"I wish I was seventeen again"

With his divorce hearing approaching and his children wanting nothing to do with, Mike O'Donnell (Perry) really wishes that his life had turned out differently. Back in 1989, he was the most popular jock in High School, captain of the basketball team and with a scholarship waiting for him after the big game but when his girlfriend tells him the biggest news of his life, he always thought that his life should have been so much better. When he returns to his old high school to pick up his children Alex (Knight) and Maggie (Trachtenberg), he sees his old basketball team photo and wishes he had his time over again. After a few strange events happen on his way back to his best friend Ned's (Lennon) house, he looks in the mirror to see his seventeen year-old (Efron) but can he cope with been a teenager again?

Hollywood seems to be obsessed with showing you that even if you had the chance to change your life you would be better off with the one you have but can Zac Efron make you wish you were seventeen again?

In most people's lives you can pin point a time when if you made a different decision, chose to go one way instead of another, your life would have been so much different. The premise of making a wish that you could be younger or older and then waking up to discover that you have become a younger or older version of yourself but then going on to learn a life lesson has been a Hollywood stalwart plot for many a decade. Films like 'Vice Versa', '13 Going on 30', 'Freaky Friday', 'Like Father, Like Son' and probably most famously 'Big' have all played with this premise, with mixed success but all of them have the same conclusion, you should be happy with what you have. The latest film to play with this premise is '17 Again' and it sticks to the same principles but has some fun along the way. When Mike O'Donnell was seventeen he had the world at his feet. The most popular guy in school, the captain and star of the basketball team, the head cheerleader as his girlfriend and a college scholarship waiting for him after he wins the championship for Hayden High, everything changes when Scarlet tells him that she is pregnant. He decides to do the right thing, giving up his dream to become a husband, a father and the provider for his family. Fifteen years later, Mike is riddled with regret, passed over for promotion again at work and on the verge of getting a divorce, he returns to his old high school to pick up his kids. Seeing his old basketball team photograph from 1989, he wishes that he could be seventeen again and when the Janitor asks him if he really means that, he says his life could have been so different. After a disastrous evening out with his children and discovering that his soon-to-be ex wife is about to start dating, Mike drives home in the rain, only to see the Janitor he spoke to earlier standing on a bridge looking like he is going to jump. Trying to stop him he falls into a water vortex but when he arrives back at his best friend Ned's house, sopping wet and covered in mud, he looks in the mirror to find his seventeen year-old self looking back at him. Yes, the premise is the same as ever and it sets up the chance for Mike to have another crack at making into basketball but he has another lesson to learn of course but the journey is still a fun one.

When casting the younger and older versions of Mike O'Donnell, the casting director must have been drinking if he or she thought that someone who looks like Zac Efron would grow up to look like Matthew Perry. With this movie, the 'High School Musical' superstar gets the chance to show that he can do more than just sing and dance and shows that the cries from Hollywood that Zac Efron is going to be a huge star are not unfounded. He certainly has a screen presence, showing this is spades during the confrontation scene with the school bully and he has the looks that all teenage girls dream about. Matthew Perry's role is more of a cameo but he is still trying to get out of the shadow of 'Chandler Bing'. The rest of the supporting cast are good however. Leslie Mann continues to be the actress people can count on to play the comedic wife that you can't help but adore. Michelle Trachtenberg moves on from her 'Buffy' days but she is still playing a teenager even though she is in her twenties. Sterling Knight is good as Mike's picked on son Alex. It is Thomas Lennon who steals show however as Mike's super geek but extremely rich best friend who is pursuing Principal Jane Masterson, played by Melora Hardin. He provides most of the comedy in the film and makes '17 Again' all the more watchable.

'17 Again' might not be the most original movie to come out of Hollywood but it is a fun one. The film gives Zac Efron the chance to shine and show why he might just be the next big thing but with good support, especially from Thomas Lennon, and some good laughs a long the way, this won't be such a chore to watch for all of those non-'High School Musical' fans who are bound to be dragged to see this.

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2009