The Change-Up
The Change-Up depicts what happens when two guys wake up to discover that they’ve switched identities. The Change-Up takes bromance to a whole new level. They not only change bodies, they jack off each other’s dicks.
Justin Bateman and Ryan Reynolds are a corporate lawyer and a slacker in that order. The comedy, what little exists, comes from how each of them deal with the real life issues of their now different lifestyles. Olivia Wilde and Leslie Mann co-star.
The Change-Up wants to be raunchy and goes for broke in that general direction. I’m talking projectile baby shit in Bateman’s mouth in the film’s opening scene. Perhaps not oddly the funniest moments are slightly disturbing, like the guys whipping out their shlongs in an indoor mall in front of a troop of Girl Scouts, or Reynolds seeking sex from women in their third trimester.
The whole genre of body switching movies is a safe bet for posterity. Just look at all the fans of such movies from a generation ago like Vice Versa, Dream A Little Dream or Big. Aside from the tendency to try to be gross for grossness sake, The Change-Up never really offers Bateman and Reynolds the chance to be iconic like say Travolta and Cage in Face/Off.
Despite the R-rating Change-Up still goes easy on the drugs. Even though he’s always stoned we barely see Reynolds toking a joint, the editing always has the reefer stick in motion. Likewise his dad (Alan Arkin totally wasted no pun intended) comes over to his son’s slacker apartment and finds his bong on the kitchen table and reacts like it smells but the bong has no water. That pretty much sums up the comedy in The Change-Up. It’s like a bong without water.
— Michael Bergeron
