Thursday 2 April 2009

FILM REVIEW: 17 Again

UK Release Date: 10 April 2009
Starring: Zac Efron (orange teen) and Matthew Perry (orange adult)


OK, full disclosure: even though I haven't seen this film (per The No Show rules), I have seen this film. Everybody has seen this film. There are isolated tribes hidden deep in the jungles of South America who, if asked for the plot of this film, would say, "Oh yeah dude, isn't that the one where this orange dude becomes a younger orange dude version of himself in a desperate quest to rediscover his inner orange dude self that used to be cool and then learns lots of life lessons and totally gets the orange girl and has awesome orange hair?"

Then they would totally shoot you with a poisonous dart before taking away your orange Golden Idol and giving it to Belloq (the French bastard).

But there are two things they will not tell you about this film and these are them:

First, the main dude character in this film, both as an adult and as a teenager and then as an adult again, is totally and completely orange both on screen and off.

Second - and this is the really important bit: we are supposed to believe that Matthew Perry - yes, the chunky orange one from the endlessly repeating TV "classic" Friends - actually looked like Zac Efron when he was 17. (And in case you're older than 14, Zac is the pretty orange girl from the High School Musicals films.)

THIS IS RIDICULOUS. EVEN BY HOLLYWOOD STANDARDS.



I can accept that John Travolta and Nicolas Cage switched faces and recovered in like five minutes in Face/Off. Twice. I can accept that a team involving Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Owen Wilson saved the world from an asteroid by being sent into space by Billy Bob Thornton on a military space shuttle in Armageddon. I can even accept the idea of Madonna as actress in Evita.

But my belief suspenders officially snap at the idea of Matthew Perry once looking anything even slightly resembling Zac Efron.

The reasons for this are threefold:

1. Matthew Perry is an old man and Zan Efron is clearly a pretty, young girl. Very flat-chested admittedly, and a bit boyish in her clothing choices, but a girl nonetheless. It's too big a gap for my brain to cross.

2. Matthew Perry looks like someone grabbed his head and inserted it up a cow's ass, twisted it around and then popped it back out, before leaving him out in the sun to dry for several weeks. His skin is loose and a bit floppy like a hunting dog's and it may one day actually reach the ground. His hair is a weird mix of really dry and really greasy. His clothes always look like they may have fit him once, but a long time ago when he was either fatter or thinner. Zac Efron, meanwhile, is a pretty, young, well dressed girl.

3. Matthew Perry is... nope, I've got nothing. Read 1 and 2 above. It's that simple. Matthew Perry and Zac Efron. The same person. Totally ridiculous. Like having Morgan Freeman paying an older version of Scarlett Johansson. Painted orange.

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER HOLLYWOOD, NOBODY'S BUYING IT.

Shatner Scale: Quincy cameo.
Must hear: No. For the love of God, no.



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