Okay. So a couple of months ago, a few people from this Facebook film group that I'm in made a claim that Zac Efron has grown as an actor since the end of his High School Musical days. So I asked that they tell me which of his movies I should see that are post-HSM to prove it. So I just watched one of the films they told me to watch: 17 Again.
Plot: 17 year old Mike O'Donnell abandons his dreams of basketball when he learns that his girlfriend Scarlett is pregnant. 20 years later, he and Scarlett are separated due to his ongoing regrets about his choice of leaving his dreams behind. They have two kids who don't want anything to do with him and he is scheduled to be divorced. One night, Mike spots a janitor looking like he's about to jump off a bridge. He tries to stop him but the janitor disappears and he falls off the bridge into a whirlpool that turns him back into his 17 year old self. So with the help of his best friend, he applies to the same high school he went - where his kids are also going - and try to relive his high school life while trying to help his kids with their high school experience.
There's a good logical part of me that can't believe I'm saying this, but for what it's worth...it's not that bad of a film. I mean let's get one thing perfectly clear: it's not a very original story, nor was it structured original. But the concept...I admit I liked. I mean being 17 has only been almost five years for me rather than 20, but even then, it's a nice film where as you watch it, you might pause it and just think what would you do if you got to be 17...heck, experience your whole high school career all over again. And while the whole relationship between Mike and his family is not incredibly fresh, I can still appreciate what Mike is doing throughout the film, especially when it comes to helping his kids. What gets me I would say is just how it gives you the nice way of relating to people from high school. So many of us either experiences high school as the best or the worst of times. How teenagers can face hell when it comes to bullies, try to become popular, and even think that how you feel about somebody is going to last forever. I may not have been shoved into a locker, been captain of a sports team, or heck, had one wonderful girlfriend that I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with. But still, I'm a man who had a life as a high schooler, and there's plenty of things I'd think or view differently or tell people I knew about stuff differently if I went back in time to relive so much as one particular year in high school. So I liked it when it came to how Mike too the opportunity to try to point that out. Now that's not entirely accurate since he mostly did that to his kids, but he did try briefly to do the same to the other kids which has to count for something. Now as for how he became 17 again, I'll give some credit that the whirlpool is a different take. But I think it was done when it was shown again during the end. also, *WARNING SPOILERS* I really didn't like how they ended the movie. It was very abrupt to me. I really felt like they should've shown more then just Scarlett and Mike getting back, Ned and Jane being together and Mike being the new coach. I mean I'm sure Scarlett and Mike live happily ever after with their kids, but I would've liked to have seen stuff to see the kid's happy ending. Like...maybe a pic of Maggie dating a better guy when she's in college and Alex dating that girl he liked and getting the scholarship. Maybe not that stuff per say, but it felt dumb leaving them out of the ending. *END OF SPOILERS* But I will also admit some of the comedy is cute. Even the Star Wars jokes managed to be a bit amusing.
Acting/Characters:
Zac Efron/Mike O'Donnell (17 years old): *sigh* I hate do admit that the guy who took part in making an ultimate moron of a character like Troy Bolton actually did a nice job but...he did. I mean in the beginning he was being Troy Bolton with the dancing and the basketball, but luckily, by the time he held a basketball again, he gave us a different character...not by too much, but enough. He managed to be fun, caring, had some decent emotional moments, and had a nice mature side to him. Plus if I recall correctly, he doesn't sing at all which I'm sure is a score for people who hate High School Musical SOOOOO much more than I do.
Matthew Perry/Mike O'Donnell: The one big issue...HE WASN'T THERE LONG ENOUGH!!!! Granted, this is the Friends fan in me, but still, for what it was worth, he was fun to watch. He had his cute moments and he had his one funny getting pissed off at someone moment, I mean Efron was fine, but there's the part of me that wished that somehow Perry was there the whole time...man I'm such a biased Friends fan.
Music: Don't care about the score, but some of the songs were awesome. I mean "Danger Zone" was on it and...I don't remember the rest, but they were still fun.
Editing: It was mostly fine, but when Mike went to his first day of school, there were a lot of shots were they show an action, and then just play it again in a different shot during that scene. Then later during the end there were to transactions where it was fade to black and then an add dissolve into the next scene. Both of which I thought were unneeded and were a little dumb.
And that's my review for 17 Again. In terms of both how it's structured and the story all around, it's not original, but the concept about reliving high school and the not that bad acting for Efron made it work out to be an okay film.
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