17 Again : the movie
Posted on April 21, 2009
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What would you do if you got a second shot at life? 17 Again opens in 1989 where star basketball player Mike O’Donnell refuses a college scholarship, deciding instead to marry his girlfriend Scarlet when she reveals they are suddenly expecting a baby. Class of 1989: Mike O’Donnell is a star on the high school basketball court with a college scout in the stands and a bright future in his grasp. But instead, he decides to throw it all away to share his life with his girlfriend Scarlet and the baby he just learned they are expecting. Almost 20 years later, Mike’s glory days are decidedly behind him. His marriage has fallen apart, he has been passed over for a promotion at work, his teenage kids think he’s a loser, and he’s been reduced to crashing with his high school nerd-turned-techno-billionaire best friend Ned. But Mike is given another chance when he is miraculously transformed back to the age of 17. Unfortunately, Mike may look 17 again, but his thirty-something outlook is totally un-cool among the class of 2009. And in trying to recapture his best years, Mike could lose the best things that ever happened to him.
Zac Efron (High School Musical) shoots and scores in this new role. He shows he’s got what it takes to pull off the way-out-there premise of being a 37-year-old trapped in a 17-year-old’s body. Matthew Perry (Friends) does a good job maintaining the look of the older Mike, but it’s Efron’s show all the way. Thomas Lennon follows up his hilarious supporting antics as the spurned man-date in I Love You, Man with some equally amusing work as Mike’s friend Ned, while Leslie Mann plays the estranged wife in style. As Mike’s kids who unknowingly become high school buds with their own father, newcomer Sterling Knight and Michelle Trachtenberg get enough screen time to shine. Melora Hardin (The Office) is also quite funny as the school principal that lovelorn Ned keeps stalking.
the cast of the movie:Â Zac Efron, Leslie Mann, Matthew Perry, Michelle Trachtenberg, Melora Hardin
Directed by: Burr Steers
Produced by: Jason Barrett, Toby Emmerich, Mark S. Kaufman
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