Review: Freakier Friday

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Pictures.

There are some sequels or reboots that aren't necessary and others that are more inspired. The new version of "The Naked Gun" is an example of the latter, while "Freakier Friday" is one of the former. This is not to say that the film doesn't have its moments, but the picture believes that providing more is a raison d'etre.

And by more I mean that, in this sequel, four characters trade places, rather than two. Other than that, the film pretty much follows the exact same formula - at times, to a tee - as the 2003 remake, which of course was a remake of a 1976 film with Jodie Foster.

It has been argued - probably correctly - that the 2003 version with Jaime Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan is the best of these films, mostly due to the adept comic timing of its two stars. Lohan has been somewhat off the scene of mainstream filmmaking for a while, but I can report that she does just fine here and that her comedic abilities remain intact - in fact, the film's best comedic sequence relies solely on her ability to pull off a ridiculous gag.

In this film, Anna (Lohan) and Tess (Curtis) have kept the peace in the 20-plus years since we last saw them, but Anna now has a surly teen of her own, surfer Harper (Julia Butters), with whom to contend. Anna's biggest quibble with her psychiatrist mother is that she occasionally steps on her feet as a grandmother who occasionally outshines her mothering skills.

Anna meets and falls in love with Eric (Manny Jacinto), a Brit whose snobby daughter, Lily (Sophia Hammons), is Harper's sworn enemy. Bringing the two families together seems an impossible task, so of course it takes a trip to a kooky fortune teller (Vanessa Bayer) to suddenly ensure that a body-switching with lessons attached occurs.

But this time, Anna switches with her daughter, while Lily and Tess end up in each other's bodies. Many of the same jokes reoccur - Curtis and Lohan play adults dressing and acting like teens, while their younger counterparts come off as stiff and serious - and the formula in which characters must see the good in others and act selflessly is rehashed.

It's not a bad movie, but it's material we've seen before - and in better form. That's not to say there aren't some delights to be had here. Curtis and Lohan are clearly having fun yukking it up portraying young women. The aforementioned scene in which Lohan shines involves a hilariously failed attempt at seduction that had me laughing almost as much as at some of last week's "Naked Gun" gags. But all in all, this is just an OK attempt to reboot a popular movie of yesteryear - or, as one of the youths in the film would call it: mid.