Loaded Couch Potatoes

A classic plot revisited in this surprisingly good movie.

17 Again is a good movie about Mike O’Donnell, played by both Matthew Perry and Zac Efron. He’s an unhappy man about to be divorced, who dreams of better days as a 17 year old popular basketball player.  When he’s mysteriously transformed back into a teenager, it’s only his best friend Ned Gold who he can turn to for help.

Ned (played by Thomas Lennon of Reno 911) is the saving grace of this movie.  Don’t get me wrong, I was very surprised by how much comedic timing Efron has in this film.  But Thomas Lennon delivers a pure comedy performance as a sci-fi nerd millionaire.  He’s funny and goofy.  As “the best friend” he is supportive and sympathetic, and as it happily turns out, he’s spent his millions on sci-fi nerd stuff.

When we first see Ned he’s wearing pointed ears.  I never did figure out if he was supposed to be an elf or a vulcan.  In his house, there were probably a hundred different things that I wasn’t even able to recognize.  So, I’ll just be hitting the high points.  He owns light sabors, swords and armor, life-size statues of Darth Vadar and the mummy, a yoda figurine, a potato-head storm trooper (you know the ones), a king kong figurine, a yoda mask and a storm trooper mask.  Last, but not least, his bedroom has a Tattooine background with a land speeder bed!

Besides all the things I wish I had, Ned’s “nerd” senses come in handy.  At the beginning of the movie, when Mike has no idea what has happened to him, Ned looks through all his sci-fi and fantasy comics and books to try to find the answer.  After eliminating the possibility that Mike is a vampire, Norse god, or robot, he lands on the answer, “spirit guide transformation magic” (this only happens after a light saber duel between the two friends).

At different times in the movie Ned does everything from play 5 video games at once to star wars chess online.  He also photo-shops himself into some pictures, as Luke carrying Yoda, and as Han Solo side by side with Chewbacca.  Those picture are priceless, I loved them!  Everything he does is over the top geek and totally hilarious.

Neds romantic interest is the high school principal, Jane (played by Melora Hardin).  He tries repeatedly to win her over and fails.  That is until over dinner he admits that he’s a dork, and not only that, he’s the type of dork that would pay $10,000 for Gandalf the Grey’s quarter staff from the Two Towers.  Before the words could come out of my own mouth, Jane corrects him that Galdalf the Grey is not in the Two Towers, it is Galdalf the White.  By this point in the movie I was really cheering for Ned and laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe!

For the rest of the movie, these two are speaking elvish to each other and bantering back in forth in “nerd” talk.  When Jane doesn’t want a public relationship, he says he’s wearing a “cloak of invisibility”.  When he’s confessing his love, he says he wants her “by my side, when I’m storming the elvish castle.”  I giggled the entire time!

There was nothing not to like about Neds character, other than the cliche social awkwardness that movies are always pinning to nerds.  At the end Ned and Jane are in the land speeder bed, both in pointed ears, with Jane sporting some elvish jewelry.

There are plenty of other things the average nerd might enjoy seeing.  Little Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Michelle Trachtenburg plays Mike’s daughter.  A small Back to the Future reference is near the end, when Mike wakes up thinking it was all a dream, only to find someone he’s related to wanting to nurse him back to health.  And if you’re interested, but don’t like Zac Efron, get the Blu-Ray version for the scene where Thomas Lennon slaps him four times in a row.  You can tell they weren’t “pulling punches” when Efron’s cheek reddens in seconds of each slap.  That’s Blu-Ray quality for you!

In the end, Mike’s kind of a jerk until he’s learned his lesson, but Ned is an uncompromising sci-fi/fantasy fan who sacrifices nothing about who he is to get the girl.  My type of story.