The Change-Up Red Band Trailer (2011)

The red band trailer for The Change-Up.

Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman star in The Change-Up, from director David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers), writers Jon Lucas & Scott Moore (The Hangover) and producer Neal Moritz (Fast & Furious, Click). The R-rated comedy takes the traditional body-switching movie, ties it up tightly and throws it off a cliff.

Growing up together, Mitch (Reynolds) and Dave (Bateman) were inseparable best friends, but as the years have passed they’ve slowly drifted apart. While Dave is an overworked lawyer, husband and father of three, Mitch has remained a single, quasi-employed man-child who has never met a responsibility he liked. To Mitch, Dave has it all: beautiful wife Jamie (Leslie Mann), kids who adore him and a high-paying job at a prestigious law firm. To Dave, living Mitch’s stress free life without obligation or consequence would be a dream come true.

Following a drunken night out together, Mitch and Dave’s worlds are turned upside down when they wake up in each other’s bodies and proceed to freak the &*#@ out.

Despite the freedom from their normal routines and habits, the guys soon discover that each other’s lives are nowhere near as rosy as they once seemed. Further complicating matters are Dave’s sexy legal associate, Sabrina (Olivia Wilde), and Mitch’s estranged father (Alan Arkin). With time not on their side, Mitch and Dave comically struggle to avoid completely destroying each other’s lives before they can find a way to get their old ones back.

Leslie Mann plays the wife of Jason Bateman’s character, a man who switches bodies with his best friend. In 17 Again, she plays the estranged wife of a man who magically wakes up in his own teenage body.

Stars Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds have been friends for many years and also worked together in Smoking Aces (2006). The Change-Up cost an estimated $52 million and only made $37 million domestically. It did much better worldwide making $75 million.

The trailer for The Change-Up looks like an R-rated Freaky Friday with Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds giving the same old premise some much-needed energy. Bateman plays the family man who is bored with his domestic life of kids, wife, and careful scheduling. Reynolds plays a womanizer who treats every day like a party, but can’t seem to find meaning in his lifestyle of debauchery. Since the two are best friends, they lament over their respective lives over a few beers and each say the magic words of wishing to be their friend while peeing in what I assume is a magic fountain that is able to pull a mystical body switch while they sleep. So the two get to try new things, including hanging out with Olivia Wilde who is Bateman’s co-worker, but now Reynolds? Or Bateman with the mind of Reynolds? Or whatever, you know the drill with these movies.

The womanizer gets to see what it’s like to be married, which apparently includes watching one’s wife excrete with the bathroom door open. Comedies like these always have to have a bit of bathroom humor, so it may be gross but acceptable. Leslie Mann is a comedic genius but she does play the wacky wife who occasionally annoys a lot. I would complain but she is so hilarious and perfect in that role, there is nothing to complain about.

We don’t have to watch the movie to know that the characters will each realize how great they had it before, or maybe the womanizer will see that having a family is the right way to go and he will be forever changed. The Change-Up has all the trimmings of a dumb comedy with distasteful humor but is elevated significantly by its stellar cast.