The Change-Up

The Change-Up introduces another comedy wherein a male friendship is composed of one person who is responsible (Jason Bateman as Dave Lockwood) and another who lives a carefree day-to-day lackadaisical freestyle (Ryan Reynolds as Mitch Planko). While Lockwood's mannerisms are prim and proper, Planko's are slapdash and inappropriate. While Lockwood tries to be a strong respectable family person, Planko smokes weed all day and is still interested in raw doggin' randoms.

And so on.

But their friendship endures nonetheless, the historical nature of their bond trumping and bringing together their disparate personalities.

In more ways than one.

As fate would have it, one evening they decide to urinate in a fountain at the same time while simultaneously stating that they wished they had the other's life, after which they wake up the next day having switched bodies, forced to live that other life that they had spontaneously stated they wished they had (while urinating).

The rest of the film's mildly amusing while Planko tries to bluff his way through a merger that Lockwood worked on tirelessly for months and Lockwood tries to star in a soft porn flick, etc. Maybe amusing's not the right word. There's a lot of shock comedy straight from the sewer that is relatively unexpected and difficult to watch. I found it more surprising than amusing although I was amused by the surprises.

Content switches form and is provided with a significant degree of freedom due to the historical nature of that form's condition, and, with a little coaching, manages to improve on its initial foundations after coming dangerously close to destroying them completely.

But like the old change-up pitch, you expect it to come in fast and furious and instead it slows down and fades.

Old idea scatologically revitalized oscillates from one extreme to the other before falling flat.

The Change-Up.