The Change-Up (2011)

Body-swapping comedies are so 80s. But with The Change-Up, David Dobkin, director of the bloke hit The Wedding Crashers, puts a ribald spin to the genre. Those who can't stand scatological jokes and profanity ought to steer clear. Unless you're a Judd Apatow fan. Although in this movie, you should expect much less emotional poignancy.

It is refreshing to see Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds take on atypical roles. As the overachieving lawyer Dave with a stiff upper lip, Bateman steps into those loafers comfortably. Often type-casted as the jokester, he is now the model family man who works so hard till his wife, Jamie, feels neglected. On the other hand, Reynolds who mostly comes across as serious or amiable, gets to be the mildly offensive, profanity-spewing lothario, Mitch.

Dave and Mitch have diametrically-opposed characters and they play off each other very well. A hilarious encounter with a Roman statue by a fountain in the park, while they take a leak, allows them to magically swap bodies. Seeing them switch bodies to play opposite personalities and scramble (amusingly) to adapt to their new lives is central to the enjoyment of the movie. And through living each other's lives, they learn to improve themselves.

Dave enjoys independence and freedom from his stifling marriage, while in Mitch's body. At same time, getting jolted and turned off by Mitch's odd sexual partner, lewd profession and bizarre bedhopping antics. Meanwhile, Mitch gets to clean up his bawdiness and straighten up his waywardness while taking on the responsibilities of married life's daily grind, which includes changing the soiled diapers of two impish toddlers.

While the movie adopts the predictable narrative of flawed characters being transformed for the better, the journey is fun and occasionally goes ape. So check your brains at the cinema door and just go with the absurdism.

Fmovies: For some reason, the films about "body switch" had always been a province of the childish (or juvenile) cinema, but this time, The Change-Up tries to transplant that classic formula to the vulgar and scatological field of the modern adult comedy, with a mediocre result. However, even though the main characters in here are two immature men (instead of mother and daughter, father and son, young man and old man, etc.), we can be sure that the lessons will be exactly the same, even though in order to learn them, it is necessary to eat excrement from digital babies, seduce the secretary, and participate in a "lorno" (light porn) flick. I wish the film was as funny as it sounds.

The two previous films from director David Dobkin were the tedious Wedding Crashers and the atrocious Fred Claus. The Change-Up is better than those two films (something which is not big compliment), because it creates a credible friendship between two men with different but compatible personalities, there are some moderately funny moments and the fleeting dramatic moments feel well executed. However, on the other hand, the film show few narrative ambition, many excessively predictable jokes and improbable situations, not exactly because of the implicit "magic" on the premise, but because the supporting characters have to act like authentic idiots in order to let the idiot main characters continue with their chain of bilge without worrying about bulky logic or inconvenient credibility.

Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds bring charisma to their performances, but I think that the individuality from their characters should have been better handled, independently from the actor who represents them. While I was watching The Change-Up, I remembered the remake of Freaky Friday, where Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis found the exact tone to mutually interpret each other, to the point in which we stopped watching the actress and accepted the character. However, Bateman and Reynolds simply change their clothes and say more (or less) rudeness according to the character they interpret. I think that this film would have been better if it had employed two main actors completely different with each other, in order to accentuate the "exchange" with genuine acting. For example, imagine if instead of Bateman, we had Jonah Hill; or if instead of Reynolds, Chris Rock would have been hired.

Despite its mediocrity, The Change-Up kept me moderately entertained, something which makes it worthy of a slight recommendation. However, I have to say that there are much better adult comedies, and much better films about "body switch" than this one.

'THE CHANGE-UP': Three Stars (Out of Five)

It's not the 80's anymore and Hollywood is still making body changing movies! If you had to make one though who better to cast in it than Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman (two of my favorite actors)?! A movie where Reynolds is an unemployed slacker pothead and Bateman is a work obsessed family man who switch bodies actually doesn't sound that bad. It is pretty bad still though for the first half of it's running length. Despite having two of the best funny men in the business, most of the jokes fall a little flat for almost all of the film's setup (Reynolds and Bateman do manage to squeeze some laughs out of the mostly dull material though). Then when the film gets to the cheesy stuff, the heart of the film and the real character development, it actually starts to work! The directing gets a little better, the performances start to shine through and the writing begins to polish itself out. It takes half a film to get there but 'THE CHANGE-UP' is mostly worth the effort.

The film is directed by David Dobkin (who also directed the popular buddy films 'WEDDING CRASHERS' and 'SHANGHAI KNIGHTS'). It's written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (part of the team behind 'THE HANGOVER'). All of the ingredients are there for the perfect juvenile male bonding adventure but I think the 'body switching' formula kind of dooms the film a little from the start (at least in the start). It revolves around two best friends, Mitch (Reynolds) and Dave (Bateman), who have grown apart due to their lives taking vastly different paths. Both men envy the other though and when they wish for each other's lives while pissing in a fountain one night their wishes come true. Leslie Mann (otherwise known as Mrs. Apatow) and Olivia Wilde co-star as the men's two love interests, one is Dave's wife and the other is his co-worker. Things of course get very complicated and trouble ensues (which then of course leads to emotional evolvement and surprisingly strong character growth).

The film really does make you care for it's two lead characters and watching their emotional growth does really work. That's thanks in part to the directing and somewhat well written screenplay but more so Reynold's and Bateman's performances (I think). They've proved that they not only have a knack for comedic timing but also dramatic chops when given the right material as well. With this film when the drama kicks in the comedy also picks up and flows better. At first the jokes are pretty standard and overused (they're also extremely crude and disturbing) but as the characters start to get more interesting and involving the jokes get funnier and more meaningful as well. If you're a Ryan Reynolds or Jason Bateman fan (or a fan of body switching movies) you'll almost certainly enjoy this film at least some what, despite it's rocky take off.

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The Change-Up fmovies. I like the idea of this movie, the casting is great and everybody is doing his/her job. I had few laughs and as I have written above, if you like comedies and have some time to kill, this is a good choice.

However, I think that they could have played a little bit more with the script. At the beginning, we are "told" that Mitch's life is great and Dave's not so much. Of course, a viewer with an average intelligence knows that things are not always as they seem. However, I think that in the end Mitch's life was portrayed really negatively and all perks and good moments in the "Mitch's body" had to be created by Dave himself. What I mean is that writers could have maybe worked a little bit more on Mitch's character.

Thanks to the fine people at Klout.com, I was able to get to see a rough cut of the movie "The Change-Up" starring Jason Bateman, Ryan Reynolds, and Leslie Mann (she of Apatow fame.) Hilarious. Much MUCH better than I expected. Of course, this is the type of film better seen with a filled theater.

Of course it's a hard 'R' for vulgarity, nudity, and everything you expect in a sex-themed comedy. The trailers don't shy away from that.

One always expects great comedic timing from the likes of Reynolds and Bateman. However, in these roles they truly do something different. Bateman gets to be the raunchy one. He finally gets to let loose. Reynolds holds back as the straight-laced guy who's more of a thinker.

Leslie Mann was the true surprise in the film. I hope Judd Apatow watches this "The Change-Up" and realizes one thing; THIS is how you write for/use your wife in your films. Leslie can act! She takes the otherwise tiresome 'wife' role and turns it into something a little deeper.

Olivia Wilde plays the unfortunate part of 'that girl.' She's not there to serve much purpose throughout the flick, but her story is summed up nicely. But sweet merciful GOD does she look fantastic with very dark hair! Anyway, it's a great flick. I suggest you go see it, you'll enjoy it. It's not your typical "body swap" movie (ala "Freaky Friday," "Vice Versa," "Like Father, Like Son.") plus I believe it has more heart than any of those three.

Oh, the body-swap comedy. You know how it starts, you know how it ends and frankly, you know most of what's in between. To name an R-rated buddy version of this formula "The Change-Up" is essentially serving up a thick slice of irony, yet somehow "The Hangover" writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore and "Wedding Crashers" director David Dobkin manage to change just enough to prevent predictability from drowning their film entirely.

The film starts neck deep, however. Jason Bateman's character Dave wakes up bright and early thanks to his newborn twins, one of which projectile poos all over his face. Gross-out humor might be one of the worst ways to start a modern comedy, but somehow "The Change-Up" manages to recover thanks to a strong cast and writing that works when it's not trying too hard to be funny.

Dave and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) are old friends with opposite lifestyles that predictably wish they could have what the other has. Dave has been an achiever all through his life and never stopped to enjoy himself in the ways of drugs and women, for example. That would be typical bachelor Mitch's life. Mitch, on the other hand, would love for even a modicum of success and stability. Plug in a magic fountain activated by two different simultaneous urine streams and voila — body-swapping comedy.

Thus begins the journey of the two friends toward the inevitable learning not to take for granted the lives they have. To be fair, Lucas and Moore write in some scenes that break convention. Early on, for example, there's the scene when they try and convince Dave's wife (Leslie Mann) that they've switched bodies by telling her to ask Dave (in Mitch's body) a question only he would know. Seen that before, right? Rather than she predictably believing them, things take a comic turn when Dave reveals a very private detail about her.

When "The Change-Up" isn't forcing in Farrelly brothers-inspired gross-out humor, it's a decent comedy. For one, the writing from a non-jokes standpoint has surprising strength. At several moments the film goes down some more dramatic side streets that feel natural because the characters have just enough depth for us to care. Mann's performance in particular helps this along — she's far from the typical mother/wife figure in a buddy comedy.

By establishing a bit of a routine in that Mitch in Dave's body must try and prevent Dave's law firm's merger from falling through while also balancing a family life and Dave in Mitch's body must simply get laid in a strange matter of ways, the story doesn't spiral out of control. The focus stays mostly on Mitch in Dave's body as he's the significantly less shallow character with more going on. Bateman takes advantage, transforming himself with a terrific number of quirks, which he's done so well in his career. On a number of occasions, however, the way you'd expect a character to behave and how they actually behave don't match up, which definitely hurts the ability to get caught up in the story, but there's a logic to the sequence of events and as such, natural jokes evolve that counteract the bad ones to some extent.

Somehow the writing manages to hit on points of sentimentality as well. Despite the inevitability of the outcomes, the story arcs of the characters make good use of this tired concept as they drift from hating the change to embracing it to the realization that they truly appreciat