Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
On the brink of a midlife crisis, 30-something Mike O'Donnell wishes he could have a "do-over." And that's exactly what he gets when he wakes up one morning to find he's 17 years old again. With his adult mind stuck inside the body of a teenager, Mike actually has the chance to reverse some decisions he wishes he'd never made. But maybe they weren't so bad after all.
17 Again is a competent but formulaic body-swap/age-regression comedy that treads very familiar ground (Big, 13 Going on 30, Freaky Friday). Zac Efron's charismatic performance elevates the material above its predictable script, and the film delivers decent laughs and heart, but the plot is recycled and the cinematography is purely functional. The ending wraps things up neatly in a crowd-pleasing but entirely expected way.