The Change-Up (2011)

I added The Change-Up on my watchlist a long time ago because of Jason Bateman but never cared to watch it because I knew it'd be some idiotic comedy. There are those days though when I feel like watching these movies, like today. 

The story follows two friends —Dave (Jason Bateman) who is a hard-working lawyer married with the beautiful Jamie (Leslie Mann) and father of three, and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds), a single, reckless and unemployed stoner who never concludes anything. One night, after getting drunk, they urinate in a park's fountain and at the same time they wish they had each other's lives. The next morning, they wake up and discover that they have switched bodies. 

It certainly isn't the most original premise as there's plenty of body switch movies out there whose execution is why less juvenile than The Change-Up's. That being said, the plot as predictable and clichéd as it gets —I mean, that epiphany you could see it coming a mile away— isn't terrible as watching Dave and Mitch switch bodies and try to adapt to the other's life is enjoyable, entertaining almost. 

As for the characters, they are tremendously superficial as well as the typical characters played by these actors as Jason Bateman plays the serious and kind of awkward workaholic, with a family this time around, he always plays, and Ryan Reynolds plays the idiotic, carefree, irresponsible ladies' man he plays most of the time. However, Dave and Mitch switching bodies means Bateman and Reynolds switching roles and, despite the fact that cheap laughs are all they get, it's quite refreshing to see them play atypical roles. Leslie Mann is a bit of a show-stealer though as she manages to give her shallow, non-existent character a little depth. Olivia Wilde is here only for eye-candy purposes. And Alan Arkin is terribly underused as Mitch's father. 

Universal Pictures

Despite the enjoyable plot and the actors, The Change-Up still is a mediocre film, nothing more than an idiotic bro movie for the most part —at some point, it gives up its bro tone to become an overly sentimental mess—, with plenty of gross moments, vulgarity and gratuitous nudity. Sure, it's entertaining and fun-ish but at the same time it's offensive and most of the jokes fall flat.