Plotline
Two best friends, a high-power attorney and a slacker actor, magically trade places and have the chance to live the other’s life.
Review
The Change Up just might be one of the worst films I have seen in a long time. It not only fails to get many laughs but is nothing more than a by-product from the Hollywood system.
Look at the basics. Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman are supposed to be playing life-long friends. Never mind the fact they’re ten years apart in real life—neither has an iota of a connection with the other, which is the main key in making these switch films click. The filmmakers weren’t looking for a double act to make the film work: they just wanted names that go against the grain with these types of films, and on that lone front they succeeded.
And the rest of the cast? Not only do actresses Leslie Mann and Olivia Wilde play characters whose sole function is to be objects of desire, much of the film’s humour is played at their expense. And the only logical conclusion one can come to how the great character actor Gregory Itzin and the ever-brilliant Alan Arkin landed in this film is that: a) the studio had them in contracts and couldn’t find anything else to use them in or b) both actors really screwed up and angered some power-hungry executive who decided to flex his muscles and torture them by exiling them into this nonsense.
I could go through each scene and show examples of lazy scriptwriting, poor direction, phoned-in performances and deeper, almost frightening roots of misogyny, but to spend the time would be to elevate this crass, sorry excuse for a film above itself. Anyone, from a humble script reader to a high-power executive, who thought this turd of a movie is worth anyone’s time and money should be run out of their jobs and barred from working in cinema again.
If your idea of a good time is watching babies bash their heads on walls, throw knives and stick their fingers into kitchen appliances while defecating into someone’s mouth or watching beautiful, bare-breasted women loudly use the toilet, slap your money down and enjoy. As for the rest of us…
Bottom Line
Not just a lousy movie but an indictment on the whole Hollywood system. Avoid at all costs.
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