Turns out there's more to Zac Efron than the grinning, vacant marionette from the "High School Musical" series.
In "17 Again," Efron shows he can carry a film on his own, with minimal help from flashy dance numbers. He's got personality and screen presence, and enough range to half convince you his character is a slimmer, younger version of Matthew Perry.
Efron plays Mike, a former teen basketball star and big man on campus who gives up his career to marry his pregnant girlfriend, Scarlett. Cut to 20 years later and Mike, now played by Perry, is miserable. And not only because he looks like Matthew Perry. He resents Scarlett (Leslie Mann), who is divorcing him, as well as his two distant teen children.
As luck has it, a magical, Santa Claus-lookalike janitor happens upon Mike and grants him his wish to be instantly Benjamin Buttoned back to youth.
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Posing as the son of his geeky, best friend, Ned (Thomas Lennon), Mike enrolls at his old high school, befriends his bullied son, Alex (Sterling Knight) and keeps a close eye on his wild daughter, Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg).
When he's not at school doing undercover parenting, Mike hangs out at home trying to talk his former self up to Scarlett while also creepily seducing her. Even yuckier are the scenes in which Maggie starts putting the moves on Mike, who doesn't fend off her advances quite as firmly as one would hope.
All the awkward generation-skipping makes for plenty of uneasy laughs, and even though it feels as though you've seen this type of thing a thousand times before, "17 Again" changes things up just enough to seem fresh.
Think of it as "Big" in reverse, with a touch of "Back to the Future" and a dash of "Freaky Friday."
Director Burr Steers, who was last heard from in the film world in 2002 with his subversive black comedy "Igby Goes Down," gives the film an anything-goes, John Hughes-style feel while keeping things inoffensive enough for tweens. Even the one risqué scene, in which a sex-ed teacher hands out condoms to the class, Mike takes a stand for abstinence that convinces all the girls to follow suit. Phony? Sure. But in the moment it somehow works.
In an amusing sidebar to the main story, Ned — a self-made software millionaire who is socially inept — courts the school principal, Ms. Masterson (Melora Hardin, who played Jan on "The Office").
Masterson is oblivious to Ned's overtures but he eventually wears her down, convincing her to fly her own freak flag.
Sure, Hardin does the same thing she did in "The Office," but she handles the transformation from harsh, closed-off professional to a love-struck softy so well, it's tough to turn up your nose.
Some contrived bits work, but others are groan-inducing, including a movie-opening dance number in which Mike joins in with a cheerleading routine. It's a cloying token for squealing "High School Musical" fanatics that made me want to hate "17 Again" before it really got started.
Steers lets Efron go all Troy Bolton again when he confronts a school bully in the cafeteria by taunting him with Harlem Globetrotters-like basketball juggling. In the movie, the bully is awed and backs down. In real life, trying that will get you punched in the face.
Yet despite itself, "17 Again" won me over by playing like a lost 1980s high school comedy that oozes enough charm and personality to smooth out the rough spots. Even the obnoxious Perry can't spoil things because he's barely in the movie.
This is Efron's show, and there's enough music in his performance to justify an encore.
Review
17 Again
***
• Rated: PG-13 for language, some sexual material and teen partying.
• Cast: Zac Efron, Matthew Perry, Leslie Mann, Thomas Lennon.
• Director: Burr Steers.
• Family call: A fine family movie.
• Running time: 102 minutes.
