Big gets a Judd Apatow style makeover in this body swap comedy. Jason Bateman is Dave, the married workaholic with 3 kids while Ryan Reynolds is his mate Mitch, an out of work hedonist actor. After a night out, the pair wee in a fountain wishing for each others' lives and wake up as the other. Cue 'hilarious' misunderstandings as Mitch tries to close a merger at Dave's law firm while Dave has to star in a 'lorno'. Will Dave's put upon wife Jamie (Leslie Mann) notice and will Dave, as Mitch, be able to resist the associate he has the hots for, the gorgeous Olivia Wilde?
While the film's premise is hardly original, the swapping of a married guy and his slacker friend has real comedy potential and Bateman, Reynolds and Mann have great comedy chops. David Dobkin directs with pace and you'd expect an hour and a half of easy laughs. However, The Change-Up is a bit of a misfire owing to the script (written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore) that does nothing to convince us that Dave and Mitch could ever be friends (the pair went to school together but look about a decade apart in age) and that replaces jokes with gross out moments that are sometimes funny (a sexy Mann on the toilet after a bad chinese) but mostly just gratuitous. The film is also not dramatically convincing - yes, I know it's a body swap comedy but Mitch's stupid antics on his first day in Dave's job would result in the sack. In the end, neither Dave nor Mitch are that sympathetic which means you don't care much if they learn the heavy handed moral of the film which is to be happy with your lot. On the plus side, Mann and Wilde get naked.
GK Rating: ** The Blog of Delights
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