Being recently retired, I occasionally wander over to one the the three nearby movie-plexes for a little bargain matinee entertainment. Since today was the day our cleaning lady turns our house upside down, I decided it would be an excellent opportunity to catch one of the summer's film treats.
For reasons I won't detail here, I decided to go see "The Change-Up," the Jason Bateman/Ryan Reynolds "body switch" flick.
Not a good idea. While there were several scenes that were either hilarious or poignant, they fell woefully short of salvaging this tired redux of body-switching stories of movies past. This iteration is one part Freaky Friday, one part Big, and one part Caligula, with more than a dash of ridiculous characters (caricatures?) and unbelievable story lines.
Let me put it this way: the movie opens with Bateman getting blasted in the face and mouth by his pooping infant child. It went downhill from there.
I won't go into any more of the gory details, but if you're still thinking about going, read these reviews by the NY Times and Roger Ebert, whose opinions I share:
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/movies/the-change-up-directed-by-david-dobkin-review.html?ref=movieshttp://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110803/REVIEWS/110809994A FAR better choice is the very engaging "Friends With Benefits," starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. I've never been a big fan of Timberlake, but he does a great job in this winning relationship movie done with freshness and three-dimensional characters.
Subject: "The Change-Up" 
Thu Aug 18, 2011 3:38 am
Some times it's hard picking what movies might be