The Change-Up

David Dobkin

In the opening scene, projectile poop from a baby’s butt scores a bullseye on Jason Bateman’s face. Crap on the big screen – that just about sums up this film.

Bateman plays Dave Lockwood, a married- with-children lawyer who is overdue for a mid-life crisis, and Ryan Reynolds is his pal Mitch Planko, a sometime actor who is still living it up as a swinging bachelor.

The two switch bodies when they pee into a fountain. Predictably, the uptight guy learns to cut loose while the slacker guy learns about grown-up responsibilities.

However, the way they go about doing so is utterly unbelievable. For example, even though Mitch-in- Dave knows nothing about the law, he is able to play a pivotal part in a major, and majorly complicated, deal.

Indeed, the script, courtesy of The Hangover’s Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, has a very strong and distasteful world view: Women are witless sex objects and movie audiences are blithering idiots.

Stay clear.

(ST)