High School Musical star Zac Efron gets to relive the best years of his life in the middling new comedy 17 Again
The tagline for 17 Again asks potential viewers, “Who says you’re only young once?” One reasonable answer would be “science,” but then, rationality has little place in any movie starring Zac Efron.
Other than impeccable hair and perplexingly tight jeans, Efron is best known for his role in Disney’s High School Musical franchise as a dancer disguised as a basketball player. In 17 Again, he plays Mike O’Donnell — who also happens to be the star of his high school basketball team. Unfortunately for O’Donnell, his dreams of playing in college are dashed when he gets his girlfriend pregnant, and the story fast-forwards 20 years to find him now looking like Matthew Perry and working an unfulfilling job in pharmaceutical sales. His girlfriend Scarlett (Leslie Mann) has become his wife, but she is divorcing him because he won’t stop whining about how great his life would have been if he had kept playing basketball.
Long story short, O’Donnell falls off a bridge into a mystic whirlpool and somehow transforms back into his 17-year-old self. Deciding to embrace the change, he enlists his best friend Ned (Thomas Lennon) to pose as his dad so he can go back to high school. There, he learns things about his teenage daughter Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg) and son Alex (Sterling Knight) that he could never find out as an inattentive father.
By the time this life lesson causes O’Donnell to appreciate his wife and kids and return to his Matthew Perry form, it’s difficult to look at the movie as anything other than an overdone star vehicle for Zac Efron. The film doesn’t require him to step outside his comfort zone even once, and surrounds him with talented veterans who make up for his lack of comedic chops. That’s the weird thing about 17 Again — on paper, this is a film with a lot of potential. Director Burr Steers demonstrated a good touch with young characters in his previous film, the flawed but affecting Igby Goes Down, while the supporting cast is replete with great comedic actors. Besides Judd Apatow regular Mann and Reno 911!’s Lennon, there are appearances from Melora Hardin of The Office, MAD TV’s Nicole Sullivan and comedian Jim Gaffigan. Regrettably, Jason Filardi’s script gives them little to work with; most of the jokes are based on vague observations about how out-of-touch adults are in the eyes of teens.
The movie’s only convincing scenes feature Efron scolding teenagers for not appreciating their youth and telling them their lives will go downhill after high school. His advice rings true when he’s talking to this new generation of young jocks, but it also makes me think Efron should heed his own character’s warning as he tries to evolve his career beyond the Disney machine. It’s not hard to imagine him in 20 years bemoaning how great his life would be if he’d only kept on making High School Musical movies rather than trying to grow up.
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