The Change-Up Released 16 September 2011 Director David Dobkin Starring Ryan Reynolds, Jason Bateman, Leslie Mann, Olivia Wilde, Alan Arkin Writer(s) Jon Lucas, Scott Moore Producer(s) David Dobkin, Neal H. Moritz Origin United States Running Time 112 minutes Genre Comedy Rating 16

25

The Mayor of Garbage Town.

The shudder that goes down the spine when you read that a film “stars Ryan Reynolds” is understandable enough. Whatever you think about Reynolds’ acting, there is no doubting his remarkable versatility. He has been awful in a huge variety of films in the last few years. He can do dumb comedies like National Lampoon’s Van Wilder and Just Friends. He can do bland, generic rom-coms like The Proposal and Definitely, Maybe.

Being a big, strapping lad, he can also ruin action movies. He was in the pathetic Tarantino-wannabe gangster movie Smokin’ Aces. He also proved to be the death nail in two action franchises X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Blade Trinity. This summer he was even given his chance to headline his own sci-fi franchise, Green Lantern. Predictably enough, it tanked. Reynolds is truly a renaissance man of cinematic crap.

In The Change-Up, Reynolds is back in comedy and this time he’s paired up with Jason Bateman. In contrast to Reynolds’s baffling rise to stardom, former child star Bateman’s return to prominence in recent years has actually been quite well received. That said, after a string of recent leading roles in turkeys like Extract, Couples Retreat and Horrible Bosses that goodwill might just be wearing thin. So can this film revive both men’s fortunes?

They play a pair of childhood friends who have grown apart as adults. Dave (Bateman) is a high-flying lawyer and family man. He has a young daughter and toddler twins and is married to the demanding Jamie (Leslie Mann- Hollywood’s professional shrew!) His hectic life is in stark contrast to Mitch (Reynolds) who’s a full-time slacker, playboy and sometime “actor”. He’s pretty much a douche bag and he also has a troubled relationship with his father (an ashamed-looking Alan Arkin).

Dave is frustrated with his life and has a bit of a crush on his sexy co-worker Sabrina (Olivia Wilde). On a drunken night out, he confesses as much to Mitch. Mitch, who is quite happy with his life, pretends to envy Dave’s life as a family man. While urinating in a fountain (nice!) they wish they had each other’s lives and when they wake up the next day, they have switched bodies.

Realising immediately what has happened, they race back to the fountain to reverse the spell but find it has been moved by the city. While they struggle to find the fountain they have to try to live as each other. So Mitch has to play Dave the lawyer and Dave has to play Mitch the actor. Cue high-jinks, misunderstandings, etc. etc. before the inevitable bout of learning at the end.

The body switch plot device has been used plenty of times before in the likes of Freaky Friday but rarely has it been used to such crude effect. Gross-out humour could be funny when the Farrelly brothers started doing it in the nineties in the likes of There’s Something About Mary. However this type of humour has become so standard in Hollywood comedies that hardly anyone blinks when a baby accidentally defecates into the mouth of his parent in the first five minutes.

You get the feeling that the writers have to fall back on such vulgar set-pieces because they know the central premise just isn’t that funny. There are one or two laughs to be had in the interplay between Bateman and Reynolds but overall this is just another in the long line of unfunny ‘comedies’ that Hollywood are producing in record numbers these days.

So for Reynolds, it’s basically just business as usual.

- Jim O’Connor