17 Again

Sometimes it goes to show that a film needn't be original to succeed. The screenplay for 17 Again, the latest Zac Efron vehicle, doesn't have a jot of originality but still manages to be sharp, funny and heartwarming. Matthew Perry stars as Michael O'Donnell, a star basketball player at high school in 1989 who packed in his chance of a scholarship to marry his girlfriend Scarlet (Leslie Mann) when after she tells him she's pregnant. Fast-forward to the present day and Scarlet has kicked him out of the house, bored with his constant complaining that he never got to fulfil his potential. Magically transformed by some kind of janitor-cum-spirit guide (the one plot element that the script bungles) into his old seventeen year-old self (Efron), Michael re-enrolls in high school with the idea of re-living his glory years and attending college. Along the way he befriends his son, who's being bullied, and his sulky teenage daughter who is dating the school bully.

It's as cheesy as you'd expect, with Michael realising the importance of his wife and children just as it seems to be too late (it isn't, of course). However, Efron's winning central performance and some spot-on pop culture references help make 17 Again shine. There's also something undeniably entertaining about a prudish, moralising middle-aged man trapped in Zac Efron's twinkish body. Whether he's preaching abstinence in a sex education class or trying to convince a trio of admiring girls that they need to respect their bodies, he's consistently amusing. Some nice supporting turns from the ever-reliable Leslie Mann and Thomas Lennon as Michael's sci-fi obsessed best friend help round things out nicely. A surprising winner.