The movie itself is petrified meatloaf. It's a body-transference comedy in the vein of "Big," "Freaky Friday," and other candidates for Turner Classics. After that opening sequence, in which 1989 high school stud Mike O'Donnell (Efron) blows the big game to be with pregnant girlfriend Scarlett (Allison Miller), we cut to the present. Mike is now played by Matthew Perry, and it ain't pretty. Warning to parents: "17 Again" considers 37 a prime age for being pushed out onto the ice floe.
Scarlett is now played by - hooray - Leslie Mann, the tart, helium-voiced savior of Judd Apatow comedies (she's Mrs. Apatow, too). The couple's children are surly Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg) and punching bag Alex (Sterling Knight). Everyone hates Mike, and why not? He's angry his life didn't pan out and he looks like a Friend with a career hangover. Cue the otherworldly janitor (Brian Doyle Murray), a bridge scene that rips off "It's a Wonderful Life" and - whammo - Matthew Perry is Zac Efron again. Movie saved.
The gist is that young Mike has to rescue his failing marriage by hanging out with his own kids and cozying up to his now-older wife. "17 Again" thus plays up the cougar comedy (that's the polite word for it), and Mann is such a sweetie-pie farceur that the movie actually threatens to get weirdly hot. The bit where Mike's daughter turns her sights on him is just weird, though. "Back to the Future" made this sort of incestuous envelope-pushing work, but that movie starred Michael J. Fox. Zac Efron, sir, is no Michael J. Fox.
He is pleasant, though; gets some nice top-spin on his dialogue, dances a bit, plays well with others. Efron's not without talent but he is without the presence - the mysterious charismatic heft - required of an actual movie star. On the other hand, being very, very pretty and very, very polite worked for Troy Donahue and Bobby Sherman. (Girls, ask your elders.)
