The Change-Up (2011)

Yet another film about body swapping has arrived, only this time it has come with a potty mouth to try and be 'down' with the cool kids. The 'adult' comedy has had it's fair share of movies this year with the great Friends With Benefits, Bridesmaids and Horrible Bosses, to the slightly disappointing Hangover 2 and Bad Teacher. Finally we get to the bottom of the list with The Change-Up, a sort of Freaky-Friday for people who enjoy a few more jokes about men's private parts in their films.

The story follows Dave (Jason Bateman) and Mitch (Ryan Reynolds). One is a family man, the other a Lothario (You can take a wild guess at who plays which character). One night, while drunkenly peeing in a water fountain, they both wish to have each other lives, and guess what? They get exactly what they wished for.

There's no doubt that more adult comedies have turned up because of the huge success of the Hangover, and deservedly so. The problem is studios are slowly running out of ideas to keep the 'raunch-com' train moving. Unfortunately Poo in the mouth, saying the F-word every 30 seconds and sex jokes have been done  many times before and indeed, much better. In the Change-up it just comes across as lazy, which is a pity because the two leads are very good comedic actors and seem to be having great fun with the material. Although both Ryan and Jason are well-known for their comedy films, this will be unlike anything you've seen them in before. Especially Bateman, who normally goes about his roles fairly quietly ans squarely. Not here! Bateman is full of F-bombs and rude jokes. That Change-up works at all is down to the two leads who bounce off each other really well. It's just a shame that's as good as it gets. Leslie Mann and the gorgeous Olivia Wilde, seem very game but Alan Arkin's role as Mitch's Dad is pointless and a waste of a great talent.

It's a shame the story has been stretched so thin that the audience will get bored very quickly once the jokes stop coming because no one will care what the two leads get up to when they finally 'find' themselves. Take BIG as the perfect example of how it should be done. That film had a lot of heart and a character in Tom Hanks's Josh that people loved. The same could be said for Lindsay Lohan in Freaky-Friday (although she's certainly no Tom Hanks).

Despite the film having two genuinely great comedy actors and writers and producers who helped create the Hangover this is still a fairly drab film. It's only 1 hour 40 minutes yet still feels 20 minutes too long and unfortunately, we've seen this all before.