Director: Burr Steers
Starring: Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, Leslie Mann, Michelle Trachtenberg, Sterling Knight
In Cinemas: 9 April 2009

Fired from his job and on the verge of losing his family, middle-aged Mike O’Donnell (Matthew Perry) dreams of the days when he was a high school basketball star with a bright future in his grasp. But Mike is given another chance at changing his future in this light, forgettable but fairly well constructed tween girl fodder.

The 1989-set prologue wastes no time in appeasing the hordes of adolescent girls in the audience, establishing that 17-year-old varsity basketball star Mike O’Donnell (Zac Efron) is both smart and sensitive and willing to give up his college hoop dreams to be with his inadvertently impregnated girlfriend (Allison Miller).

Some 20 years later, Mike has shed his spirited pubescent charm and adapted the facial features and sarcastic grimaces of Matthew Perry. He’s also been liberated from his dead-end job in sales, alienated from his kids and separated from his high school sweetheart turned wife, Scarlet (Leslie Mann) who is fed up with him living in the past. And after an enigmatic encounter with a janitor, Mike finds himself transformed into his former 17-year-old self (Zac Efron) in this body swap comedy for fans of High School Musical.

While magically restored to his 17-year-old body (Efron’s), Mike heads back to high school and gets to know – for the first time – his cynical daughter Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg) and socially awkward son Alex (Sterling Knight). Told more as a tale of fatherly redemption than a time-travel adventure, 17 Again leads Mike into an alternative future within the teen-comedy drag.

The parent-approved sex symbol status of Zac Efron is remains unthreatened in 17 Again due to its energetic but earthbound comic fantasy that gains a little inspiration from Big and It’s a Wonderful Life. Efron fits superbly into the film’s monochrome morality with its nerds vs. jocks characterisation.

Perry, on the other hand, seems to be in a thankless, second-rate role in that he almost stays off screen. Whether this is to disguise the fact that he looks or sounds nothing like Efron, it is not made clear.

With charming leads and well-judged direction by Burr Steers, the script is sure-footed albeit mostly predictable. Playing on notions of midlife nostalgia with grace and integrity, 17 Again ticks the boxes for the most part.

3 out of 5 stars.